
Class 1. 

Book. 



CciiyrigMW 



. P/ 



eOEXRIGHT DEPOSm 



Forgotten Fights 
of the A. E. F. 

BY 

IRVING EDWIN PUGH 

AND 
WILLIAM F. THAYER 



Seven Battlefront Maps 



Boston 

The Roxburgh Publishing Company 

Inc. 



J\6io 



ft 



Copyrighted 1921 

By IRVING EDWIN PUGH 

All Rights Reserved 



©CI.A624002 



^^(> X 



ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS. 

The preparation of any historical work is 
fraught with many and great difficulties, at 
best, and this work has proved itself excep- 
tionally so. The greatest difficulty was, of 
necessity, encountered in the bringing to- 
gether of the material from official sources 
which could be relied upon for the making 
of the work absolutely authentic and trust- 
worthy, and so it was that the majority of 
the material and information which is em- 
bodied in this work was gathered personally 
by the authors, while in active service with the 
American forces in France and Germany. 
The outstanding points of the battles men- 
tioned are absolutely accurate and a matter 
of official record, and have been woven into 
the fabric of the story by the interspersion 
of personal details and impressions as to make 
the whole readable as well as authentic. 

In the preparation of this work, we have 
of necessity, called in several others, who have 
rendered us highly valuable services both in 
the writing and preparation of the work for 
the press, and it is to those persons that we 
extend, herewith, our sincere thanks for their 
part in the making of the series a success 
thus far. 

We find ourselves indebted to several for- 
mer soldiers who rendered valuable aid in 



ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS. 

the gathering of the details ; to official sources 
for operation reports of the divisions men- 
tioned; to ''The Stars and Stripes" for 
poems quoted; and more especially, to Miss 
Elizabeth Mary Ellingham, who has given 
untiringly of her time and experience in 
the technical preparation and the correc- 
tions of the structure of the original manu- 
scripts, and to whom we feel especially in- 
debted, as this work was both tedious and 
arduous. 

THE AUTHORS. 



DEDICATORY. 

Throughout the preparation of this work, 
I have felt myself under the constant in- 
fluence of one who has never failed to give 
me the unstinted aid and encouragement 
without which it would have been well nigh 
the impossible to attempt setting forth the 
story of our operations overseas. The 
writing of any historical work is very tedious 
and exacting to say the least, much more so, 
that of history so recent as that of 1918, 
and it was only by the constant careful at- 
tention and tender solicitude that the work 
has reached its consummation in the present 
volume. 

This one has ever been present at my side 
in the re-reading and corrections of the text; 
the tedious and boresome duties of getting 
the touch of the soldier into the tale of the 
historian; the tramping again through the 
forest wastes of Villers-Cotterets or the 
storming of the Bellicourt tunnel; ever as- 
sisting, just at the opportune moment with 
some little touch of realism or pathos or the 
description of some bit of French country- 
side, which had lost its individuality in the 
maze of history notes, (for she has likewise 
been to La Patrie and has lent the artist 
touch to the bare tale of the soldier-historian. 
She it is who has been the inspiration and 



DEDICATORY. 

guide through the otherwise boresome tangle 
of official details and piles of communiques 
and maps. 

She is sitting at my side as I write these 
words, and to my wife I dedicate the story 
which she has helped me prepare. 

Irving Edwin Pugh. 



TABLE OF CONTENTS, 

I Cantlgny : America's First Chance. 

II With the Second Division on the 

Paris-Metz Highway. 

III When the Yanks Came. 

IV Beginning of the Great July Coun- 

ter. 

V The Second Division at Vierzy 

and in the Foret de Villers- 
Cotteret. 

VI The "Yankee" Division Holds 

the Pivot at Bouresches. 

VII With Our Second Corps at the 

Hindenburg Line. 

VIII The Yankee Soldier. 

IX To Our Dead! 



FORGOTTON FIGHTS OF 
THE A. E. F. 



INTRODUCTORY. 



The annals of the Great European War are 
so replete with the tales of heroism of the 
fighting men of the several Allied Nations 
that there seems nothing left to add, although 
the true story of how these several million 
or more heroes died may, perhaps, never be 
fully known, for each one of them died with 
his story untold, and the same shell-burst 
that snuffed out his life ended forever the 
probability of the world, — to say nothing of 
his comrades, — ever knowing just what im- 
pelled him to the Great Adventure. 

Every crater upon the shell-torn fields of 
Flanders; every tree whose withered arms 
moan in the winds that sweep across those 
desolate wastes of Picardy; every muddy 
stream and rivulet that winds between the 
poplars and vineyards of Champagne; every 
solitary cross that marks the final "Blighty" 
of some unknown and unsung hero; — all 
these things serve but as grim reminders of 
the mighty conflict, and as the 

"Footprints on the Sands of Time," 

that point the way that the martyrs of 



10 FORGOTTEN FIGHTS OF THE A. E. F. 

Humanity and Democracy have trod, torn 
and bleeding, weary and worn, starving and 
delirious. 

These are only passing landmarks, as 
it were, of the great epic of Freedom; the 
milestones along the desolate and barren 
way along which the Armies of Justice and 
Liberty and Freedom have marched to 
Victory; the second Calvary, upon which 
the Prince of Peace, once more reviled and 
scourged by his oppressors, has passed, — 
to His Golgotha, to be sure, — but, beyond 
the pain and anguish of the cross; beyond 
the sting of the blows of the scourge; beyond 
the darkness and gloom of the tomb, like 
the Man of Sorrows, the Martyrs of Free- 
dom have caught the vision of the Holy 
City; have realized that their sacrifice will 
be rewarded, and their anguish and pain 
have not been suffered in vain. Just as the 
Master, riding triumphantly into the Jeru- 
salem of old, caught there the vision of 
Gethsemane and dark shadow of Calvary, 
just so have the heroes of Flanders and Pi- 
cardy, of the Marne and of the Aisne, of 
Saint Mihiel and of the Argonne caught the 
vision of the Holy City where they shall be 
once more united with those for whom they 
died; shall pass in review before the King of 
Kings and Lord of the Ages, — the Great 
Commander, their White Comrade, and hear 
Him say, ''Well done, enter into rest." 

Such is the vision that we who have come 
safely through the hell of the trenches and 



FORGOTTEN FIGHTS OF THE A. E. F. 11 

have been spared to fulfill our mission in the 
world of Peace, have caught as the star- 
shells of the Boche burst in the midnight air, 
and flooded the narrow trenches with their 
effulgency; and as we emerge again from the 
great maelstrom of fighting and death, we 
feel the greatest blessing that a soldier can 
feel, — the knowledge of a duty well done. 
It has been a really wonderful Adventure 
for us, and we hope only to prove ourselves 
worthy of the brave laddies that we have left 
sleeping on the distant shores of France, 
where : 

"In Flanders Fields the poppies blow, . 
Between the crosses, row on row. 
That mark our place, and in the sky 
The larks, still bravely singing fly." 
Their voices are calling to us, even now, 
as we return to the land for which they died ; 
to the land that shelters and protects those 
they loved; to the land that gave them birth, 
and like a mother cuddled them to her 
bosom, that in her hour of direst need, they 
might be strong and fit to take up her quarrel, 
and to protect her; to the land for which 
they so manfully went forth to die, and so 
bravely laid down their lives upon the shell- 
swept plains of Flanders and through the 
trackless wastes of the Argonne. Their 
voices call to us: 

"If ye break faith with we who die. 
We shall not sleep, tho* poppies grow 
In Flanders Fields." 



12 FORGOTTEN FIGHTS OF THE A. E. F. 

Many are the paeans of victory and the 
shouts of the multitude of free voices that 
are raised to acclaim the heroes and the 
victors, as they come marching proudly 
home, with their battle-honored banners 
waving in the summer breezes of their native 
land; hark to the loud acclamations of love 
and joy as "those who waited" welcome 
the returned boy-veterans of the greatest 
war the world has ever seen! See the manly 
pride and youthful fervor and enthusiasm 
of the laddies, as they swing along down the 
broad avenue to the martial music of the 
bands. There are triumphal arches erected 
all along the line of march, bearing witness 
to the pride and love of the Nation for her 
valiant sons; the papers are full of the praises 
of the heroes of the fighting armies, which 
have covered themselves with glory in the 
great conflict. 

And, to-day, friends, if you were to enter 
the town of Coblenz on the Rhine, you 
would be thrilled with pride as your eyes 
fell upon the flash of color that fitfully 
waves from the heights of castle-crowned 
Ehrenbreitstein. Ehrenbreitstein the proud; 
Ehrenbreitstein the haughty; Ehrenbreit- 
stein the impregnable; Ehrenbreitstein 
the symbolic crystallization of Prussia's 
boasted security and brute strength; Ehren- 
breitstein, the mightiest of all that "watch 
on the Rhine!" It was indeed the embodi- 
ment of all that the proud Germans could 
boast and say to all the world: "Ehrenbreit- 



FORGOTTEN FIGHTS OF THE A. E. F. 13 

Stein shall stand forever, — as shall also our 
mighty German Empire!" 

But, to-day, in solemn pride and grandeur, 
high up on the lofty sides of the rock-bound 
shores of the Rhine; high above the highest 
towers of the mighty fortress; flinging its 
folds triumphantly and majestically over the 
Rhineland valleys and vine-clad hillsides; 
telling the world, in accents that cannot be 
mistaken, that the days of monarchies are 
indeed slipping as the sands of the seas, flies 
the glorious folds of your flag and my flag. 
And it is a diff"erent flag, to many of us, too, 
for its shining stars and its field of blue are 
drawn from the highest heavens, symboliz- 
ing that our guidance is Divine, and that its 
stars shall shine, in undiminished luster 
until the stars in heaven fade and cease to 
shine; its stripes of white are the symboliza- 
tion of the purity and fidelity of our sacred 
American womanhood, which so many of 
our heroes have died to keep unsullied by 
the lawless and ruthless march of the violators 
of Belgium and France; and its red stripes, 
are no longer red only, for they are dyed a 
deeper crimson by the sacred life-blood of 
seventy- thousands of our immortals, who 
silently keep their watch in Flanders fields. 

We cannot forget! We must not forget! 
We will never forget that the German armies 
stand defenseless before the supreme bar 
of Justice, and that there is no one who will 
besmirch his honor or good name in their 
defense! Their hands are red with the blood 



14 FORGOTTEN FIGHTS OF THE A. E. F. 

of murdered and maimed and broken child- 
hood of Belgium and France! Childish 
hands, which they, in their mad greed for 
power and their place in the sun, have cut 
off, still cry aloud for vengeance! Woman- 
hood, that most sacred of all estates, which 
they have ruthlessly trampled in the mire 
and filth of bestiality which only a Hun 
could dare think of, cries aloud against its 
oppressors. Ruined towns and peasant cots, 
torn and bruised and crushed by the heel 
of the invader, raise their black ruins to 
heaven and pray that Heaven shall send the 
grasses and flowers to cover the scars left 
behind in the path of the vandals. No! 
No! We shall NEVER forget that the Ger- 
man nation is defenselessly guilty of these 
and other crimes too vulgar to mention ; and 
we who have witnessed their works and have 
seen with our own eyes the great Hun ma- 
chine at its worst, grinding out its grist of 
death and destruction and suffering, shall 
never forget what they have done! We have 
not come through the fires of hell and the 
surging of the mighty hosts locked in deadly 
conflict, to put our flag on Ehrenbreitstein 
for a few short hours of "tinselled triumph," 
but to see to it, that, from this day forth, 
NEVER shall the German nation be trusted 
as she has been in the past! She has for- 
feited every right to consideration among 
the councils of the civilized nations of the 
world; she has proved herself a wolf and a 
roaring lion, running wild throughout the 



FORGOTTEN FIGHTS OF THE A. E. F. 15 

earth ''seeking whom she may devour." 
She has set up her standard as the murderer 
of children, the despoiler of womanhood, the 
scourge of all that is high and holy and pure 
and good. She has broken her faith with 
those who considered her their friend, and 
has boasted that all agreements between 
nations are but "scraps of paper" which she 
shall destroy at her own will and pleasure, 
in order that she may carry out her plan of 
world dominion! NO! NEVER more will 
Germany stand within the circle of civilized 
nations! We cannot forget! We must not 
forget! We WILL not forget! 

"Between its crag-ribbed summits 
And ruined castles gray, 
Between its clambering vineyards 
And orchards white with May, 
The rushing Rhine rolls seaward, 
And hard by Coblenz town, 
A flag on Ehrenbreitstein 
Upon that tide looks down. 

We have not brought that banner 

Thro' storms of gas and lead. 

Thro' your shell-swept leagues of trenches 

That are mounded with our dead 

For a tinsel hour of triumph 

Above the ancient Rhine, 

But to leave you for the future 

A warning and a sign. 



16 FORGOTTEN FIGHTS OF THE A. E. F. 

You may bask you in your legends 

Of Niebelungen lore; 

Of the mighty strokes of Siegfried 

And the hammer strokes of Thor: 

But drink no more the potion 

Of gods and super-men, 

Or the flag on Ehrenbreitstein 

Will cross the seas again." 

Irving Edwin Pugh 
William F. Thayer 



FORGOTTEN FIGHTS OF THE A. E. F. 17 



CHAPTER I. 

America's First Chance: The Fight at 
Cantigny. 

"It is possible that in those ancient years 
when Rome was crumbling before the at- 
tacks of the barbarians from beyond the 
Rhine, or when western Gaul was trembling 
beneath the armies of Attila, the civilized 
world of the time may have felt itself as 
gravely threatened with destruction as did 
modern civilization during the months of 
April, May and June, 1918, when once again 
the Huns, as always through the ages, the 
assailants of the higher types of human devel- 
opment, were making their supreme effort to 
crush the armies of the Allies upon the soil 
of France. But never in past eras, certainly, 
was the stake involved for humanity so 
vast, so world-embracing, and never did the 
outcome of a supreme struggle seem to hang 
more perilously in the balance." 

So has written a historian of the recent 
war, and surely no more truly has anyone 
ever before written! 

Things were hanging in the balance during 
those three fateful months of 1918, for the 
German Army on the Western Front, now 
almost twice its former size, due to rein- 
forcement from the collapsed Russian front; 
its troops armed and trained to perfection, 



18 FORGOTTEN FIGHTS OF THE A. E. F. 

and animated by the assurance of speedy and 
glorious success, opposing the armies of 
France and England, "doggedly determined 
still, but sorely worn and tried through nearly 
four years of ceaseless battle and cruelly 
battered by the plunges of the enemy in his 
spring offensive." 

The gravity of the crisis was startingly 
apparent — something must be done, and 
that quickly! There was but one factor, 
which, although there was an element of 
uncertainty, might serve to throw the scales 
in favor of the Allies, and that factor was as 
yet wholly untried. 

The enemy was driving a wedge between 
the British and French armies, and were 
attempting to smash their way through to 
the Channel ports, striking through the lines 
just west of Amiens, as well as another 
operation against the British in the vicinity 
of Kemmel Hill, in Belgium. The enemy 
smash was completely overrunning all weight 
of resistance which the war-worn Allies 
could throw in in their vain effort to stem the 
tide of invasion. Within eight short days 
after launching their mighty attack, the 
enemy had completely enveloped the Somme 
battle-fields, and had smashed through the 
lines of the Allied armies for a gain of about 
fifty or more kilometers. It seemed as if the 
fall of Amiens was imminent, and, with that 
city, the railway facilities centered there. 
Then, too, the gigantic proportions of the 
enemy offensive was tearing great gaping 



FORGOTTEN FIGHTS OF THE A. E. F. 19 

holes in the ranks of the Allied reserves, and 
the battle that was fast developing gave 
promise of soon placing the Allied armies 
in a very grave position. Accordingly, the 
Allies turned to America. 

The advancing hordes of the enemy were 
everywhere victorious. In numbers of fight- 
ing men, guns, experience and morale, they 
had the edge on the Allies. Their forces had 
been constantly assembling in the Western 
theatre for the great attack that should end 
the war before America could bring her power 
and fresh reserves of men to bear upon their 
blows. Germany's pick of men, coupled 
with a choice selection of her best bets in 
generalship, and the whole machine backed 
with an experience extending over more than 
three years of such warfare, had been as- 
sembled for one last supreme spurt for the 
goal. 

The enemy's initial blow had fallen power- 
lu^^ the point of junction of the French 
and British forces, and, somewhat late in the 
great struggle that had torn Europe to shreds 
for oyer three years, the Allies saw clearly, 
and for the first time, that there must be 
built up a more co-ordinate working of their 
armies if they should hope to gain the victory. 
The gravity of this situation resulted in 
a conference being called at Abbeville, on 
May 2, 1918, and, after much discussion, 
Marshal Foch was chosen as Allied Com- 
mander-in-Chief, the terms of this conference 
being stated as follows: 



20 FORGOTTEN FIGHTS OF THE A. E. F. 

"General Foch is charged by the British, 
French and American Governments with the 
co-ordination of the action of the Allied ar- 
mies on the western front; to this end there 
is conferred on him all the powers necessary 
for its effective realization. To the same end 
the British, French and American Govern- 
ments confide in General Foch the strategic 
direction of military operations. 

"The Commander-in-Chief of the British, 
French and American armies will exercise 
to the fullest extent the tactical direction 
of their armies. Each Commander-in-Chief 
will have the right to appeal to his Govern- 
ment, if in his opinion his army is placed in 
danger by the instructions received from 
General Foch. 

(Signed) G. Clemenceau 

Petain 
F. Foch 
Lloyd George 
D. Haig, F. M. 
Henry Wilson 
Tasker H. Bliss 
John J. Pershing." 

There were, at the time of the Great Ger- 
man Offensive of March 21st, 1918, in France, 
approximately 300,000 American troops, of 
which number, only a force of about four 
combat divisions could be available in the 
crisis. These four were: the 1st and 2nd, 
who were then in line, and the 26th and 42nd, 
who had just recently finished their first 



FORGOTTEN FIGHTS OF THE A. E. F. 21 

month's trench training. As a necessary part 
of their training in the trenches, some of 
these divisions had taken part in local com- 
bats, — the most notable being at Seicheprey, 
on April 20th, by the 26th Division,— but 
as yet, not one of them had been in battle 
as an integral fighting unit. 

Accordingly, the 26th and 42nd Divisions 
at once took over quiet sectors to release 
veteran divisions for the great battle; the 
26th relieving the 1st Division, which was 
ordered to the sector northwest of Paris, 
to take up reserve positions; the 42nd re- 
lieving two French divisions from their quiet 
sectors in Lorraine. 

On April 25th, 1918, the 1st American 
Division received orders to relieve two French 
divisions before the town of Cantigny, lying 
in a sector, slightly northwest of Montdidier 
and about twenty-five kilometers southeast 
of Amiens, — in other words, at the very 
apex of the gigantic enemy wedge, driven 
there by their March Offensive, nearly 
severing the Allied lines. Amiens was still in 
danger, and there could be but one question 
uppermost in the minds of all of the Allied 
forces,— could the Americans hold? If they 
did not, all was lost; if they did, as the Allies 
firmly believed they would, then the dawn of 
the day of glory had begun to break. 

Immediately upon entering the sector 
fronting Cantigny, the 1st Division was sub- 
jected to more intense defensive operations 
and raids than they had ever yet experienced. 



22 FORGOTTEN FIGHTS OF THE A. E. F. 

Artillery fire was thrown upon them in deluges, 
night and day, while the enemy maintained 
frequent and annoying raiding tactics. But 
the Yankee doughboys came back, with all 
the vim and vigor and tenacity of their race, 
and it was not long until they had recognized 
the presence in their front of the 271st and 
272nd Regiments of German infantry, with 
average strengths per company of about 
150 men, — some of the best troops of the 
enemy forces at this time. 

It soon developed that to hold the sector 
at this point would not suffice, for the strongly 
fortified and well-organized town of Cantigny, 
standing on rising ground ahead of the 1st 
Division, was affording the enemy admirable 
observation points which overlooked the 
American lines and rear areas. Further- 
more, it presented a highly favorable posi- 
tion from which the enemy might advance in 
any further assaults he might send forward. 

Cantigny faced the Yanks, out there across 
No Man's Land, and, in order to make the 
Allied positions safe and to afford a favorable 
*'jumping-off" place for a possible Allied 
counter-offensive, should the chance come, 
Cantigny must be taken. Accordingly, prep- 
arations were begun at once. 

For this attack, the 28th Infantry was 
chosen, with the 26th Infantry furnishing 
one battalion for the support, and a number 
of French tanks and flame-projectors. 

Officially, the preparations for this opera- 
tion are stated as follows: "A section of 



FORGOTTEN FIGHTS OF THE A. E. F. 23 

terrain behind the American lines very sim- 
ilar in natural features to that occupied 
by Cantigny and its defenses, was selected 
for maneuvering, and trenches in replica of 
the enemy trenches were dug upon it. Sand 
tables showing the topography, woods, lines 
of change of the barrage, objectives, strong 
points, and all houses in Cantigny which 
might be expected to be organized as machine 
gun nests were prepared and carefully 
studied. Exact and detailed orders were 
prepared by the staff and the artillery ar- 
ranged, accurately, time tables for the pre- 
liminary bombardment and the rolling bar- 
rage." 

So much for the preliminary preparation 
for the attack. 

And then came the night of May 27th- 
28th; and morning saw the enemy going 
over the top along the Chemin des Dames, 
in what was later destined to prove itself 
the last of their great offensives, and which 
carried their lines down to the Marne at 
Chateau-Thierry and threatened Paris with 
imminent attack. 

Zero hour for the Cantigny attack came on 
the morning of May 28th, at the usual time, — 
5.30, just as the first faint streaks of coming 
day lighted up the flaming front lines. The 
attacking units were accompanied by a dozen 
French tanks and the flame-throwers were 
in position, the flying units were ready for 
their part in the observation, and the en- 
gineers were likewise ready for their pioneer 



24 FORGOTTEN FIGHTS OF THE A. E. F. 

work. Furthermore, approximately 250 
pieces of artillery (75 mm to 280 mm) were 
ready to open the show at the appointed 
second. 

The night was calm and starlit, and 
promptly at the zero hour, the artillery 
barrage began its work with a roar, and a 
hail of missiles crashed down upon Cantigny. 
Great, jagged, painful, and gaping holes 
began to appear in its walls and roofs, and 
its buildings flew into jagged splinters, and 
clouds of flying brick and stone-dust. This 
terrific fire paralyzed the enemy, and when, 
at half-past six, the fire ceased as drum-fire, 
and became the rolling barrage, for the in- 
fantry attack, advancing at the rate of 100 
meters every two minutes, with the infantry 
following at the distance of fifty meters 
behind the barrage, the enemy was so be- 
wildered that he could put up but compara- 
tively little resistance. 

"Mastered by the bayonets of the Ameri- 
can infantry and terrified by the tanks and 
flame-throwers, the enemy surrendered in 
clusters, those who attempted to fight being 
shot down or taken, as the rush of assaulting 
troops mopped up the town and its covering 
trenches." That is the way one of those who 
was upon the ground at the time put the 
story of the fight. 

Shortly after the launching of the attack 
the objective line beyond Cantigny was 
reached and this with only slight losses. 
It then, of course, became necessary to con- 



FORGOTTEN FIGHTS OF THE A. E. F. 25 

solidate and hold the gains, against severe 
enemy counter-battery fire, which was be- 
ginning to fall upon our newly-won positions, 
in a devastating and withering barrage. It 
also developed that the enemy would at- 
tempt a counter-attack at once, and in order 
to hold the positions it was necessary to se- 
cure them at once, this work being accom- 
plished by connecting a series of shell-holes 
by a system of shallow trenches. These 
systems were to be defended by the use of 
the Chauchat automatic rifles. This is the 
method of consolidation which was most 
generally employed during the series of 
brilliant American operations which so ma- 
terially aided the Allied progress, during 
these critical months of midsummer, 1918. 

Wire entanglements were constucted by 
the men of the engineer corps, under a gall- 
ing and withering artillery fire and a con- 
stant machine gun barrage, while the third 
wave of the assault was employed in the 
construction of several strong points in the 
immediate rear of the front line, one of these 
points being in the edge of the woods east of 
the town of Cantigny, another in the little 
patch of woodland northeast of the town, 
and one in the cemetery north of the town. 

Having completed these hasty preliminary 
works, the Yankee doughboys awaited the 
coming enemy counter, undergoing, for two 
hours, the unabated intensity of the enem}^ 
artillery fire, which was responsible for a 
large number of our casualties, and which was 



26 FORGOTTEN FIGHTS OF THE A. E. F. 

responded to by our own artillery as well as 
that of the French batteries which had been 
assigned to our attacking troops. 

Naturally, the enemy was supremely con- 
fident that they could retake the lost po- 
sitions from the ''green" American troops, 
and, about two hours after the town had been 
taken from them, they attacked from the 
reserve trenches in the vicinity of Lalval 
Wood, covered by a carefully checked and 
prepared barrage. This attack was launched 
against the 2nd and 3rd Battalions of the 
28th Infantry. 

One of the lessons which the enemy seemed 
never to have really learned was that they 
usually followed their barrage at too great 
a distance, — usually about two hundred 
meters. Our custom was to follow up the 
barrage at a distance of from fifty to one 
hundred meters, otherwise the artillery fire 
would have passed over the line to be at- 
tacked and, if followed at a distance of such 
magnitude as that employed by the enemy, 
would have given the infantry a chance to 
get reorganized and waiting for the attack- 
ing waves to come upon them. Our tactical 
employment of the barrage, in synchroniza- 
tion with the infantry attacks, was to follow 
the barrage at such short distance as to throw 
the bayonets into the enemy before they could 
have even partially recovered from the 
effects of the shell-fire, as they would then 
present a disorganized and confused mass 
rather than efficient fighting units. 



FORGOTTEN FIGHTS OF THE A. E. F. 27 

Accordingly, the Yankee doughboys waited 
until the enemy waves were scarcely a hun- 
dred yards from them and then a burst of 
flame swept down the line, which sent the 
enemy reeling backwards towards Frame- 
court Wood, leaving at least 500 killed and 
wounded upon the ground. 

This was the first of six enemy counter- 
attacks that came upon our lines, within 
forty-eight hours, each successive attack being 
more desperate than the preceding, and the 
enemy became more and more chagrined 
at their inability to retake the lost positions. 

One military critic puts the situation in 
this manner: '* It was not only that they were 
of value to him in themselves ; the accumulat- 
ing evidence of the dash and doggedness of 
the American troops as they continued to 
maintain themselves triumphantly against 
the utmost efforts that their adversaries 
could make was giving the lie so plainly to 
the German thesis that the American troops 
were no good and never could be made good ; 
that it was impossible for the American 
effort ever to become a decisive factor in the 
war, that the enemy dared not let them re- 
tain their advantage. If they did retain it, 
the news was sure to leak out to the German 
army and people and to strike a chill of 
terror and foreboding to their hearts, as 
they thought of the millions of other equally 
sturdy Americans who were on their way to 
France, in fact or potentiality." 



28 FORGOTTEN FIGHTS OF THE A. E. F. 

This was the reason that the enemy con- 
tinued to hurl a devastating deluge of shell- 
fire and gas into the crumbling ruins of the 
town, and throw forward the best of their 
troops in a vain effort to crush the thin but 
stubborn American line. But, in these same 
thinly held positions at Cantigny, they en- 
countered the same strains of patriotic blood 
and determination never to yield, that had 
flowed through the veins of the ancestors 
of the defenders of that thin line, — the blood 
of the sons of those who had beaten back the 
British at Concord and Lexington, — the 
blood of men who *'had come three thousand 
miles across the sea to fight for human 
freedom and their own outraged rights, 
upon a foreign soil, and they now stood 
firmly to their task." 

Finally, the enemy attacks were relaxed, 
after they had suffered the loss of nearly one 
thousand killed, half that number wounded 
and two hundred or more prisoners, together 
with several pieces of heavy and light ar- 
tillery and many machine guns, rifles and 
munitions. Now it was that, seeing no 
sacrifice, however bloody, could ever re- 
cover their lost positions; that the moral 
effect of the fight must be balanced else- 
where, and that American blood had come 
at last to tip the scales in favor of the forces 
of Right and Justice and Liberty, they with- 
drew and settled down to their new positions. 

Here, also, the men of the 1st Division, 
held to their lines until relieved by French 



FORGOTTEN FIGHTS OF THE A. E. F. 29 

troops during the night of July 8th-9th, 
when they received their well-deserved rest, 
short though it was, before they moved 
down to win new laurels for themselves on 
the fields of the Marne salient, southeast 
of Soissons. 

"At Cantigny," says one military critic, 
"the^ 1st Division had taught the world 
the significance of the lesson that the Amer- 
ican soldier was fully equal to the soldier of 
any other nation on the field of battle. Who 
can estimate the extent of the subtle in- 
fluence which this proof exerted upon the 
gigantic armies locked in battle along the 
Western front, heartening the warriors of 
the Allies, dismaying those of the Central 
Powers, as they struggled literally for the 
mastery of the v/orld upon the fields of the 
Marne and Picardy and Flanders, through 
the weeks of June and July, 1918, — perhaps 
the most momentous weeks in all history." 

Small wonder, is it not, that we men of 
the A. E. F., on meeting mud-bedraggled 
buddies, slowly and wearily tramping along 
the ''long, long trail" in the Argonne, and 
hailing them with the inevitable question 
of the fighting man: "What outfit, buddy?" 
and upon receiving, in reply: "First Division," 
could simply gasp out, "Oh!" and plod 
along on our weary way to the lines ! 



30 FORGOTTEN FIGHTS OF THE A. E. F. 



CHAPTER II. 

With the vSecond Division on the Paris- 
Metz Highway. 

When the German Armies launched their 
great Aisne Offensive, on May 27th, 1918, 
the Allies found themselves as gravely- 
threatened here as they had been in Picardy, 
in March. 

The German Army, between Reims and 
Coucy-le-Chateau, at this time was able to 
inflict some of the greatest surprises, if not 
the greatest surprise of their third great of- 
fensive of 1918. They were able to do this 
on account of their rapid concentration of 
their forces which they had brought into 
this sector. 

The Seventh German Army, under the 
command of General von Boehn, and which 
was now operating along the plateau of the 
Chemin des Dames in the direction of 
Soissons and to the east and south of that 
city, and, in conjunction with the First 
German Army, under General F. von Below, 
operating to the east of the Seventh Army, 
with its left attacking Reims, had broken 
the Allied lines, and were advancing swiftly 
southward, driving backward the weary 
and inferior forces of the French and British, 
already worn out by their severe fighting 
in Picardy and Flanders. 



FORGOTTEN FIGHTS OF THE A. E. F. 31 

Little wonder, then, that the face of the 
entire situation at this time looked exceed- 
ingly black and gloomy for the Allies. The 
enemy waves were forever advancing, toward 
the Marne, which was the coveted prize 
of their efforts, the attacking forces being 
constantly replenished by fresh troops from 
the Rhenish depots. To stop, or at least 
to check, these advances, the allied forces 
sent forward many frantic and heroic at- 
tacks, — all of them in vain, — for their forces 
were depleted and nearly exhausted. 

Then came the later days of May, and the 
gray hosts were overrunning Soissons and 
Fere-en-Tardenois, and leaving the already 
devastated city of Reims, — "la Grande 
Blessee," as the good French peasants call 
it, — in a pocketed salient which was becoming 
daily more and more difficult for the allied 
troops to hold. And, furthermore, by the 
greatly increasing and constantly main- 
tained pressure of the enemy masses, the 
wedge which they had driven into the allied 
lines was bulging dangerously in the direction 
of the French capital. This bulge was more 
apparent in the open and level country be- 
tween the Ourcq and Marne rivers. 

The allied forces threw every available 
reserve against the advancing masses of 
Prussian infantry, and succeeded in slacken- 
ing the momentum of the enemy machine. 
Nevertheless, the enemy still possessed the 
decided advantage of having the initiative 
in their hands, and could therefore select 



FORGOTTEN FIGHTS OF THE A. F. F. 33 

almost any point, from which, using this 
advantage, they could drive another smaller 
wedge into the allied lines. The most likely 
place for such an attempt would therefore 
be at a point between Soissons and Chateau- 
Thierry, for it was at this face of the salient 
that they would then create a western face 
for their salient. 

For the third time in a few short weeks, 
the French people saw their enemy succeed 
in driving backward their worn and weary 
poilus; they knew that the situation was one 
of extreme gravity; they knew that the hosts 
of the enemy must be stopped now, or all 
would be lost; but they set their teeth and 
refused to yield an inch more of their precious 
French soil to the desecrating feet of the 
invader! How sublime and heroic was the 
courage and the self-forgetting resolution 
of the French people in such dark days as 
those that preceded the battle of Chateau- 
Thierry ! 

The problem was very simple, on its face, 
for the allied command. They must halt 
the enemy attacks actually under way, and, 
at the same time, hold enough reserves at 
hand to meet attacks elsewhere. In doing 
this they must employ only just so much of 
their available strength as was necessary, 
keeping the remainder always well at hand 
for shifting to other points to meet the enemy 
attacks which might develop elsewhere. 

Such was the task that confronted Marshal 
Foch during the dark days that came before 



34 FORGOTTEN FIGHTS OF THE A. E. F. 

the ever-memorable fighting of midsummer, 
1918, and the fact that the forces available 
for him to accomplish this feat, were wholly 
inadequate, only enhances the brilliancy of 
the success with which he met the crisis. 

The Commander-in-Chief of the American 
Forces in France, General Pershing, had 
said: "All that we have is yours," at the 
time of the great German offensive of March 
21st. Therefore, "with faith in the valor 
of the Americans, Marshal Foch ordered 
them to a place of the greatest danger, and 
therefore of the greatest honor, — to the 
banks of the Marne near Chateau-Thierry 
and to the great Paris-Metz Highway, where 
it crosses rolling hills to the northwest of 
Chateau-Thierry, there to throw themselves 
across the apex of the German invasion and 
bar the road to Paris." 

Accordingly, the 2nd American Division, 
under General Omar Bundy, was ordered 
from its area, near Chaumont-en-Vexin, 
northwest of Paris, to the vicinity of Chateau- 
Thierry. They entrained at once, on May 
30th, and moved to Montreiul-aux-Lions, 
establishing a divisional P. C. there. This 
is a little town on the Paris-Metz Highway, 
about ten kilometers west of Chateau-Thierry 
and on the main line of enemy advance. 

As they advanced, the news from the front 
became steadily darker. The enemy was 
advancing always, and although the valiant 
French poilus were fighting bravely and 
heroically, they were greatly outnumbered 



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36 FORGOTTEN FIGHTS OF THE A. E. F. 

and exhausted by their long fighting and 
marching. The enemy was pushing forward 
steadily, — so steadily in fact, that it would 
become necessary for the Americans to take 
up and establish a defensive position at once. 

Accordingly, this was done, with the 9th 
Infantry in line between Bonneil (near the 
Marne, southwest of Chateau-Thierry) and 
Le Thiolet, which was on the Paris-Metz 
road; the 6th Marines, extending from Le 
Thiolet to Lucy-le-Bocage; and the 23rd 
Infantry, which was operating temporarily 
under command of the 43rd French Division, 
continued the line to the Bois de Veuilly. 

Looking northeast from these positions, 
one's vision encounters a series of crests and 
slopes of a low ridge of hills, for the most 
part rather heavily wooded. Further along, 
the silvery thread of the little creek, — the 
Ru Gobert, so soon to become a part of 
America's great history, forever, — ran wind- 
ingly, between the green and brown of its 
banks, through its valley, turning, serpent- 
like, in and out between the little scattered 
villages of Belleau, Torcy, Bussiares, and 
Bouresches. Still further on, one encountered 
the more steeply rising slopes of the opposite 
side of this valley, where the enemy lines 
had been established already, with his ar- 
tillery sweeping the positions which the 
Yanks had but recently taken over. 

After the Americans had organized their 
defensive lines, the French were to fall back 
through them, from their own indefensible 



FORGOTTEN FIGHTS OF THE A. E. F. 37 

and only temporary positions. This was the 
cause of much unjust criticism by people 
who have claimed to know that our valiant 
allies, the French poilus, had been in full 
retreat and that the Americans, advancing 
bravely to meet the enemy, had pushed 
through their disorganized ranks and stopped 
the Boche in a characteristic dashing Yankee 
manner. Such was not the case, and the 
War Department at Washington can furnish 
any careful investigator with the truth of 
the whole matter. 

The falling back of the French at the 
Paris-Metz road was just as much a planned 
part of the operation as was the formation 
of the defensive line by the men of the 2nd 
American Division. 

Let us try to play fair with the brave men 
who fought with our noble allies, for they, 
the poilus of France, had already won the 
battle before our men got there, for they had 
held the Boche during the highly critical 
time that the Americans were organizing the 
defensive positions where the enemy advance 
was to be stopped. 

Friends, do not be prone to underestimate 
the aid which our valiant allies of all nation- 
alities gave us, for we must remember that 
we were fresh, while they had been worn out 
by four years of fighting before we ever 
came into it at all ; they had lost whole families 
and had had their towns in scores wiped 
from the face of the earth by the devastating 
hand of war; our homes were safe and far 



38 FORGOTTEN FIGHTS OF THE A. E. F. 

from the destructive hand of the enemy ; and 
for every American grave upon the soil of 
France, there are a thousand French and 
English graves, beside those of the heroic 
Belgians. They were fighting and suffering 
and dying, while we were trying to find out 
whether or not we ought to fight, and whether 
or not we should stay out of it, and take the 
position of the passive neutral. Ask the 
men who fought beside him what they think 
of the poilu of France, and they will tell you 
that he was just as good and, perhaps, a 
lot better than they were. If the fighters 
think well of them, why not those who 
stayed at home? 

Shall we ever forget the blue-clad poilus 
of France? Funny fellows, they were, to 
many of us, with their queer little caps, 
tilted gayly on one side of their heads, and 
their war-worn, and rain-faded horizon-blue 
uniforms. And what a multitude of little 
"musettes," — every last one of them, bulg- 
ing like an Arabian water-skin, — filled with 
the little trinkets they loved so well, and 
with their rations for the long weary marches, 
or vigils of trench-life. And, over all, was 
slung his rifle, nearly as long as himself, — 
but carried almost tenderly, it seemed, as 
one would carry a child one loved! 

It seemed to many of us that these sturdy 
souls of France were made rather for love 
and laughter, — for the associations of the 
tiny gardens where red wine and white wine 
of the southern vintage was wont to flow, 



FORGOTTEN FIGHTS OF THE A. E. F. 39 

and where men were wont to gather, of an 
evening, and pass the gossip of the day over 
the flowing glasses. One could almost pic- 
ture them, sitting there, in the reddening 
sunlight of southern France or in Languedoc, 
or Burgundy, sipping their wines, while the 
maidens danced gayly in the open space 
between the tables; not born for the stern 
and awful realities of war, where the rough 
and weary road stretches red and lone and 
long, and desolate. But they surely trod 
its JDlighted and broken pathway, with a 
singing heart, — bravely and gayly! ever 
dismissing the pain and sorrow and pathos 
of it all with their heroic little: "C'est la 
guerre!" and a shrug of their shoulders. 

We have seen them, treading the pathway 
down into the Valley of the Shadows, — 
worn and weary, and hungry, — racked and 
worn by the long days and nights in the 
lines, — yet forever smiling, that heroic and 
almost sublime smile, which it seemed, 
nothing under heaven could wipe away! 
Tender as women, always, when the little 
children came wonderingly to look at their 
sturdy forms, or glance over their rifles and 
ask them for: "Un cigarette, s'il vous plait, 
M'sieur." And yet, leaping with a snarl of 
rage and anger, upon the enemy, with his 
long, slender "Rosalie" at their throats! 

Such is but a poor attempt to portray the 
poilu. 

Returning once again to the day of June 
3rd, 1918, we find that the enemy was al- 



40 FORGOTTEN FIGHTS OF THE A. E. F. 

ready sounding out the front that was in- 
terposed across his advance to the Paris- 
Metz road, and was finding it solid. But he 
only put off his attacks until the next day, 
when he attempted to dislodge both the 2nd 
American and 43rd French Divisions, by 
launching an attack against the line from 
Montcourt, near the Marne, to Chezy-en- 
Orxois, about five kilometers northwest of 
the Bois de Veuilly. But his attacks were 
everywhere checked, due to the arrival of 
the other units of the 2nd Division, — the 
5th Marines and a part of the 2nd Field 
Artillery Brigade, which had been rein- 
forced by six groupments of French field 
artillery. 

The enemy lines had already been stopped 
in the valley of the Ru Gobert, opposite the 
Americans, and the same evening, the French 
outposts retired through the American lines, 
thus completing the movement of taking 
over the sector. 

About dusk, on June 4th, the enemy 
launched a concerted attack on Veuilly-la- 
Poterie, which was at the junction of the 2nd 
American and the 43rd French Divisions. 
This attack was repulsed to the north of the 
village, and, later on, a renewal of the attack 
suffered the same fate, with losses of about 
two hundred, although they gained a slight 
advantage on Hill 123, which, however, 
they lost to the French on the following day. 

Our artillery very effectively broke up an 
enemy attack which was launched against 



FORGOTTEN FIGHTS OF THE A. E. F. 41 

Hill 142, just south of Bussiares, on June 
5th. 

The American lines were everywhere hold- 
ing tenaciously, although the fighting in this 
vicinity had been violent and severe in the 
extreme. For this reason, if no other, the 
force of the enemy attacks may be said to 
have reached their culmination on the night 
of the 5th of June, and thus ended for all 
time the tactical importance of the enemy 
drive for Paris, just as the repulse further 
eastward had stopped their advance through 
the bulge of Chateau-Thierry. 

Here, having been terribly worn down and 
depleted by its harrowing fighting, the 43rd 
French Division was relieved by the 167th 
French Division, which took its positions on 
the left of the 2nd American Division, while 
the 164th French was likewise relieved by 
the 4th French Cavalry Division, on the 
right. 

Then, too, the 2nd American Division was 
realligned, and now presented the following 
order of battle, from right to left; 9th In- 
fantry, 23rd Infantry, of the 3rd Infantry 
Brigade; the 6th Marines and 5th Marines 
of the 4th Infantry Brigade, or, as it was later 
called, the famous "Marine Brigade." Like- 
wise, the front of the 2nd Division was 
strengthened by drawing in its left flank, 
from the Bois de Veuilly to the road between 
Bussiares and Champillon. 

Deluge after deluge of artillery fire was 
thrown upon our newly taken positions by 



42 FORGOTTEN FIGHTS OF THE A. E. F. 

the enemy artillery, which was now employing 
high explosive and yperite shells. This fire 
greatly endangered the main artery of the 
American system of supply, viz., the road to 
la Ferte-sous-Jouarre. 

As a new line of defense had been taken 
and established, it was therefore necessary 
to drive the enemy from their observation 
and dominating points in the valley of the 
creek, in order to make the American posi- 
tions more tenable, and to remove the danger 
of accurate enemy artillery fire, which might 
paralyze the service of our supply. 

Was the time now propitious for the at- 
tempting of a direct break by the Yanks? 
or would it be better to hold the enemy where 
they now were, until such time as they were 
in condition? 

The 2nd American Division accordingly 
set about the making of the plans for the 
taking of this valley, in order that they might 
dominate the positions there. 

Therefore, in conjunction with the 167th 
French Division, on its left, the 1st and 2nd 
Battalions of the 5th Marines swept forward 
through the broken woodlands, in the mists 
of the morning, with their objectives set as 
the edges of the crests north of Champillon, 
as well as those looking down into the open 
valley about Torcy and Bussiares. 

This attack was met by intense machine 
gun and rifle fire, but the Yankee "Leather- 
necks" pushed onward, and at seven in the 
morning had taken all objectives and com- 



FORGOTTEN FIGHTS OF THE A. E. F. 43 

manded the valley at this point. Now the 
advance of the 167th French Division became 
successful, and they established themselves 
on the dominating heights just west of the 
Marines. 

With the object of pushing forward its 
center so as to take the villages of Belleau 
and Bouresches, and so as to align the center 
with the left, the 2d Division set its objectives 
on a line which ran along the valley from a 
point east of Bussiares to the eastern edge 
of Bouresches. Then, the 5th and 6th 
Marines and the 23rd Infantry Regiments 
were sent forward, on the morning of June 
6th. These attacks were sent forward 
against the tangled woodlands of the Bois 
de Triangle and the Bois de Belleau (Belleau 
Wood), and, as the lines surged backward 
and forward, among the tumbled and tangled 
thickets, one of the most ferocious battles 
ever staged was fought by the determined 
and maddened men of the contending hosts. 

Time and time again, the surging lines 
enveloped enemy nests, where the spiteful 
flame of the spitting machine guns, tore their 
ranks to bits and scattered the shrieking 
wounded about the shell-swept ground be- 
fore them. Again and again, they flew at 
each others' throats cursing inwardly, as 
they swayed to and fro in the deadly grapple 
of maddened men; torn and bleeding and 
half frenzied with pain, they fought desperate- 
ly, driving their shining little trench-daggers 
deep into the loins of their opponents, then 



44 FORGOTTEN FIGHTS OF THE A. E. F. 

letting the limp, still bodies slip noiselessly 
to the ground, and dashing forward again to 
seek out another. And all of the time, the 
ground all about them was being torn by 
shells, which were bursting everywhere, 
throwing bits of stone and dirt and bodies, 
and all of the debris of battle about in every 
direction while making the earth tremble 
beneath the feet of the warriors. 

The following day, although the left had 
been able to add hardly anything to their 
advance of the preceding day, the right of 
the 2d Division was now in possession of 
Bouresches. Likewise, it had advanced into 
the Bois de Belleau as far as Hill 181, where 
they had dug in on the summit. In doing 
this, the American lines now lay on advanta- 
geous ground for observation of the enemy 
lines and positions further in the woodland. 

But the enemy machine gun nests in the 
village and woods had taken a terrible toll, 
and in these two battles the Marine Brigade 
had sustained losses of 24 officers and 390 
men killed or wounded, and the 9th and 23rd 
Infantries had lost 377 officers and men. 

From this point, for several weeks, a 
battle almost without respite continued along 
the front, more especially near Bouresches 
and southeast of that town, toward Vaux, 
as well as in the Bois de Belleau. As one 
authority puts it: "The ability of the Amer- 
icans to advance at these points, or of the 
enemy to prevent them from advancing, be- 
came so obviously a test, before the whole 



FORGOTTEN FIGHTS OF THE A. E. F. 45 

world, of the relative moral stamina of the 
two races, that the contest took on the im- 
portance of one far greater than that repre- 
sented by the mere tactical value of the ter- 
ritory involved." And, although the lines 
swayed backward and forward many times, 
always the Americans maintained the su- 
premacy. 

Then the 9th Infantry, advancing north 
of the Bois de la Morette, with the French 
troops and companies E and F of the 30th 
Infantry, 3d Division, took the southern 
slope of Hill 204 and the village of Monneaux. 

On June 11th, the Marine Brigade ad- 
vanced, covered by a rolling barrage, and 
took all of the remainder of the Bois de Bel- 
leau, with the exception of a few spurs which 
ran northward, — with over 300 prisoners and 
39 machine guns and light trench mortars. 
Finally, on June 25th, all these places were 
cleared out by the superb advance which did 
not halt until it was far out of the valley 
toward Torcy and had netted 300 prisoners 
and 24 machine guns. 

Many enemy counter-attacks went astray 
during these days, one of them launched on 
the positions of the 9th and 23d Infantries, 
in the vicinity of Bouresches and north of 
the Bois de La Morette. This counter failed 
to retake any of the lost ground from these 
regiments. Still another of the more im- 
portant enemy counters was an especially 
violent one which was launched against 
Bouresches and the Bois de Belleau, but was 



46 FORGOTTEN FIGHTS OF THE A. E. F. 

hurled back by the combined efforts of the 
doughboys and marines. 

During these weeks of fighting, the only 
relief of the 2d Division was that of three bat- 
talions of Marines, whose places were taken 
for five days (June 16-21) by three battalions 
of the 7th Infantry of the 3d Division. Then, 
too, during these operations, there had been 
opposed to this division, on various points 
of its front: 197th (relieved June 9th); 
237th (relieved June 11th); 10th (relieved 
June 15th); 28th (relieved June 21st); and 
the 5th Prussian Guard; 231st and 87th 
enemy divisions. 

One noted authority, in speaking of the 
wonderful fight of the 2d Division in the valley 
of the Ru Gobert, and their repulse of the 
enemy masses, says: "And this at a time 
when the German Command was exultantly 
proclaiming to all the world the impending 
overthrow and dissolution of the Allied 
Armies! As a matter of fact, it was precisely 
at this time and on account of this fighting 
that the German High Command had borne 
in upon it the iron fact that the scales were 
swinging against them, slowly but none the 
less surely." 

However, there still remained one im- 
portant task for the 2d division to perform 
before its history in this theatre of opera- 
tions should be called complete. Vaux must 
be taken. 

"In the creek valley between Hill 204 
(taken by the French and Americans on 



FORGOTTEN FIGHTS OF THE A. E. F. 47 

June 7th-8th), and the positions north of 
the Bois de la Morette (taken by the 9th 
Infantry at the same time), lay the village 
of Vaux, — tiny but deadly. Its stone houses 
were fortresses armed with German machine 
guns; its cellars were bomb-proofs, sheltering 
hidden swarms of infantry; its streets were 
covered ways filled with ghastly surprises 
for the attackers. It thrust out a menacing 
salient into the American lines, sweeping 
with its fire Monneaux and the communica- 
tions of Hill 204. It had to be taken!" 

That is the way a correspondent saw the 
situation. 

Having established liaison near Mon- 
neaux, the 9th infantry prepared to take 
Vaux, with the aid of the 3d Division. 

"Accordingly, every bit of available ma- 
terial of any kind on the subject of Vaux was 
brought together and carefully studied. Maps 
and old post-cards were gone over and refu- 
gees described in minute detail the construc- 
tion of its cellars and the intricacies of its 
streets. Every platoon and squad leader 
who was going into Vaux had a map showing 
in red ink the particular cellar he was to 
take and how to get to it." So writes an 
early A. E. F. writer. 

Then, on the morning of July 1st, after 
intense artillery preparation, the attack 
went forward, with the 9th Infantry, sup- 
ported by the advance of the 23d Infantry 
on the left, and the 3d Division on the right. 
About fifteen minutes after the attack went 



48 FORGOTTEN FIGHTS OF THE A. E. F. 

over, the first wave was in the town, and in 
less than half an hour it had been taken. 

Northwest of Vaux lay the Bois de la 
Roche, which position was taken by the 23d 
Infantry, which also improved its positions 
on Hill 204. But the enemy drove forward 
a counter against the Bois de la Roche, the 
next day, which was repulsed, many of the 
attackers being cut off and taken prisoners. 

Vaux was never re- taken by the enemy. 

"Summing up the situation," says one 
authority of A. E. F. history, "in Chateau- 
Thierry, in the Bois de Belleau, in Bouresches 
and Vaux and on Hill 204, the Germans had 
now faced the men from across the seas in 
fair combat; before the audience of the world 
they had met with them the moral test, and 
the result was a foretaste of what was soon 
to come. By the 1st day of July, 1918, 
men of discernment in Germany, could trace 
the word "defeat" written across the setting 
sun of "Der Tag." 



FORGOTTEN FIGHTS OF THE A. E. F. 49 

CHAPTER III. 

When the Yanks Came. 

"Over There, Over There, 
Send the word, send the word over there. 
That the Yanks are coming, 
The Yanks are coming " 

Those were the words of a rather popular 
song that came into its own during the in- 
fancy of the A. E. F. and was sung up and 
down the land, from cantonments in the 
"States" to Seicheprey, away up on that 
almost forgotten sector "northwest of Toul," 
where the handful of A. E. F.'ers had been 
first introduced to "friend Jerry." 

And it was true, too, for the Yanks were 
coming with every ship that touched the 
shores of France, and they were coming with 
the determination that they wouldn't "come 
back till it was over, Over There!" 

Then came the month of June, 1918, when 
the whole of the civilized world was scarcely 
breathing, or rather, seemingly dared not 
breathe, while the gray-clad hosts of Prus- 
sian Autocracy were dashing forward, in 
an avalanche of brute power and militaristic 
domination, down through Fere-en-Tardenois 
to the banks of the already historic Marne. 
And, following this period of deepest dark- 
ness for the allied cause, came the startling 
and breath-taking news that the full ava- 



50 FORGOTTEN FIGHTS OF THE A. E. F. 

lanche of the enemy hordes had been met 
and stopped on the banks of the Marne by 
a mere handful of Yankees, — "With the 
Help of God and a few Marines!" 

Ask those who were there at the bridge- 
head of Chateau-Thierry, — those weary and 
bedraggled men of the 7th Machine Gun 
Battalion, Third Division, who, with the 
wear and tear of over a hundred and eighty 
weary kilometers of hiking behind them, — 
to say nothing of their thirty-six hours or 
more without sleep, even for a few moments, — 
plodded wearily into the battered little town 
on the banks of the Marne, in the sunset of 
that June evening, with the white and 
gray puffs of the exploding enemy shells 
dotting the twilight skies of summer. 

When, on the 27th of May, 1918, the enemy 
smashed through the thinly-held French 
positions on the plateau of the Chemin des 
Dames and dashed forward towards the 
Marne, only two American divisions were 
available for Marshal Foch to throw into 
the breach in a mad attempt to stop or, at 
least, to stem for the moment, the onrushing 
enemy tide. 

And so it was, that the first to get into the 
apex of the great battle which was fast 
developing here, — and, according to the 
official reports of the operations, the only 
"men who fought in Chateau-Thierry it- 
self," — were the men of the 7th Machine 
Gun Battalion, of the Third Division. Never- 
theless, it stands also as a matter of official 



FORGOTTEN FIGHTS OF THE A. E. F. 51 

history, that the majority of the fighting in 
this area, — that is, the area to the north of 
the town of Chateau-Thierry, — fell to the 
men of the Second Division, who were des- 
tined to make a name for themselves and for 
American arms such as has scarcely ever 
been equaled in our entire history, in their 
fight in the Bois de Belleau, Torcy, Bus- 
siares, and Bouresches, and in the valley of 
the little creek, the Ru Gobert. 

Perhaps it might be well to quote the 
words of one of the members of the historical 
section of the Great Headquarters, A. E. F., 
staff as setting forth in the fewest and most 
pointed words, the crux of the whole matter. 
He says: "The Third Division was the first 
to reach the banks of the Marne; and those 
were Third Division machine gunners, who, 
racing across country in their little 'hommes 
40, Chevaux 8,' reached the river in time to 
fight for four days and nights that gallant 
fight at the Chateau-Thierry bridges, of 
which the thrill ran around the world." 

And, let it here be said that the Third 
Division was at this time making at Chateau- 
Thierry a name that shall stand for all time 
as equal to any other that has ever been 
blazoned upon the tablets of America's 
glorious history. 

The Third Division had, as yet, completed 
only part of its period of training in the 
vicinity of Chateauvillain and La Ferte 
sur Aube when it received orders, on May 
30th, 1918, to move at once to the front. 



52 FORGOTTEN FIGHTS OF THE A. E. F. 

This order stated that: "The 5th Infantry 
Brigade, consisting of the 4th and 7th in- 
fantries and the 8th Machine Gun Battalion, 
will be attached to the 6th French Army, 
under General Degoutte, and assigned to the 
defense of the passage of the Marne from 
Chateau-Thierry to Dormans. That part 
of the 6th Infantry Brigade, consisting of the 
38th Infantry and half of the 9th Machine 
Gun Battalion, will hold the crossings of 
the Marne from Dormans eastward to 
Damery, under direction of the 10th Colonial 
French Division of the 5th French Army. 
The remainder of the 6th Infantry Brigade, 
viz., the 30th Infantry and the remaining 
half of the 9th Machine Gun Battalion, will 
be the support of the 5th Brigade. The 
Divisional Machine Gun Battalion, — the 7th 
— will march at once for Chateau-Thierry; 
the remaining troops will go by rail May 31st, 
for their respective destinations." 

Of these various assignments, none proved 
so urgent as that of the Divisional Machine 
Gun Battalion, the 7th, which was in the 
fighting from the first time they entered the 
little town of Chateau-Thierry, until its 
final relief, ninety-six hours later. The re- 
mainder of the 3rd Division suffered very 
slightly, with the exception of some severe 
fighting in the Jaulgonne Bend of the Marne, 
where the enemy attempted a crossing, but 
was halted. 

And so it was that, with the horizon-blue- 
clad poilus of France, worn and weary and 



FORGOTTEN FIGHTS OF THE A. E. F. 53 

mud-bedraggled, and torn and bleeding, fight- 
ing a seemingly hopeless battle with the ad- 
vancing enemy waves in the shell-torn streets 
ahead of them, the men of the 7th Machine 
Gun Battalion, hastily getting their guns 
into position so as to play along the main 
bridge in the center of the town, and like- 
wise up and down the banks of the Marne 
on both sides, went into battle which was to 
continue for ninety-six hours more! 

Wave after wave of the enemy hosts 
swept forward towards the coveted goal, 
determined to either take the bridge or to 
make possible a crossing at some other point 
which would enable them to deploy into the 
open and almost level country beyond the 
banks of the Marne. But, across the stream, 
was the indomitable barrier of Yankee gun- 
ners, and "once again, for the second time 
in four years, they made the Marne the high 
tide of the Hun invasion!" 

Thousands of shells of all calibres flew 
overhead; some of them with their sinister 
whistle, many of them seemingly howling, 
but all of them uniting in one great rising 
crescendo, and the fortunes of battle ebbed 
and flowed beneath them. Great enemy 
shells dropped with crash and roar into the 
thin line of stubborn American doughboys, 
throwing debris of every description high 
into the air, and filling the spaces between 
the great rising chant and crescendo of battle 
with the moans and shrieks of the dying and 
wounded. Beyond, through the battered 



54 FORGOTTEN FIGHTS OF THE A. E. F. 

Streets of the town, gray-clad masses began 
to move forward, down to the banks of the 
Marne. It was the enemy infantry, advancing 
in their packed formation, resembling a 
great gray monster crawling down to devour 
the men who were standing their ground at 
the bridges of Chateau-Thierry. They soon 
deploy, fresh troops filling the gaps and then 
they advance again towards the goal of 
Prussian ambition, — the Marne. 

Low, sinister shrieks and whistles come 
from above, and the shells from the allied 
batteries begin to fall in the midst of the ad- 
vancing enemy masses. Men, covered with 
blood and mud, crawling over one another, 
and rushing about in a dazed state, writhing 
in agony or pushing doggedly forward, at- 
tempt to advance again to the river banks. 
The ground and streets are dotted with the 
huddled forms of the dead and dying, but 
the second wave is already pressing forward, 
and once again the Yankee machine guns 
tear great gaping holes in their advancing 
ranks; and still they hurl themselves against 
the American positions among the shell- 
holes and ruins along the river. 

AH the time, the uncanny whistle of the 
flying bullets, with their "s-s-s-s-s-s-s!" came 
from the advancing hosts across the river, 
and then, once again the Yanks turned the 
muzzles of their deadly guns full on this 
onward rushing wave of humanity, poured 
forth a steady stream of steel, as the guns 
rat-tat-tat their message of death and hate. 



FORGOTTEN FIGHTS OF THE A. E. F. 55 

Shrieks, curses and groans rise from the 
ranks across the river, which was now run- 
ning with the blood of the contending hosts, 
and time and again the whole mad drama of 
war is deepened by the boom of the batteries 
in the rear, — adding their finishing touch to 
the ghastliness of the scene. 

But the 7th Machine Gun Battalion stuck! 
and behind them and the barrier formed by 
their comrades, clad in the immortal blue of 
long-suffering France, the allied forces 
were able to dispose more fresh troops, of 
the 164th French and 3rd United States 
Divisions. These new troops took up strong 
defensive positions along the Marne on both 
sides of the town, and effecting, by the 30th 
Infantry, liaison with the 9th Infantry, of 
the 2nd Division, on the right of that division, 
near Mountcourt, west of the river. 

Finally, came the morning of the 4th of 
June, and with it relief for the weary 7th 
Machine Gun Battalion! But, as they 
filed out of their positions, and plodded 
backward from the line of the river, they 
seemed to wear the faint semblance of a smile 
of victory, for behind them were the men of 
two other regiments of their own division, 
the 3rd, as well as an entire French division. 
Why did they smile, — even though those 
smiles were the smiles of the exhausted and 
weary men who have stood face to face with 
death for ninety-six long hours? Because 
they knew that victory was theirs; that the 
setting sun of that day should bring into 



56 FORGOTTEN FIGHTS OF THE A. E. F. 

being the birth of that new power which was 
destined, even then, to spell defeat and ruin 
for the proud banners of Prussian autocracy! 
They were supremely confident that the 
enemy never would break through the line 
of heroes who they had left in charge of their 
blood-bought lines along the Marne banks, 
and in the streets of Chateau-Thierry. 

It is true the operation had been costly, 
but had it been even more costly, it surely 
would have been worth the price. When it 
is considered what effect the fighting of the 
untried American troops had upon the morale 
of the allied armies, perhaps never before had 
any like number of men in so short a time 
contributed as much to the final victory as 
did the 2nd and 3rd Divisions at and near 
Chateau-Thierry. 

As one writer, whose name I have forgotten 
for the time being, puts it: "The mother of 
every boy who was killed there can say that 
no soldier's life ever was given more effec- 
tively during the whole war." 

How brave and self-sacrificing and alto- 
gether noble have been our mothers and all 
of our noble American women during these 
stirring times ! And still all of their care and 
devotion had for its ending a grave in France! 

"There, where poppies bloom, and fields 
are scarred 

With unknown heroes' graves, remorseless, 
numb, 



FORGOTTEN FIGHTS OF THE A. E. F. 57 

And swifter than the light'ning it may come 
From unknown depths where earthly joys 

are barred, 
Where Love is lost, the quickening pulse is 

still 
And Death's rhythmical beat is audible. 
Or in the trench where golden hearted Truth, 
Clad in the panoply of grace and right, 
Sublimely pours the sweet red wine of youth 
A surf of blood upon the sea of Might." 

And still has there been no agonizing cry of 
revolt from the mother or wife or sweetheart, 
no furious imprecations, no bitterness of 
soul. 

And so America stoops and kisses the cold, 
still lips of her martyred sons, covering them 
with her starry banner of Liberty; placing 
them, — her supreme sacrifice of honor and 
love, — upon the Altar of God's throne, that 
Liberty and Justice and Freedom from Op- 
pression may not be forever lost amidst the 
crushing and brutal blows of the Mailed 
Fist and Iron Heel of the Autocrat. 

Returning to the discussion of the relative 
importance of the fight at Chateau-Thierry, 
let us consider for a few moments, what it 
meant to the allied cause and morale, at this 
stage of the great game of chess which was 
being waged on the western frontier of civiliza- 
tion. Perhaps it would be best to quote 
several noted authorities. 

The first one at hand, written by a staff 
officer of the A. E. F. Headquarters, states: 



58 FORGOTTEN FIGHTS OF THE A. E. F. 

"The effect on the French was immediate, 
visible and startling. The drooping French 
morale revived as a midsummer flower lifts 
its head after a cooling shower." 

The same authority, later adds: ''The 
American morale had also been sagging. It 
could not have been otherwise. Our troops 
had had to wait around too long, and it 
had taken all the heart out of them. Home- 
sick beyond words, they had to prepare 
themselves slowly for trench warfare, a 
deadly thing, the while the world told them 
that the war would last for years and years. 
They began to wonder whether they were 
going to be so darned good after all. Then 
suddenly the whole face of the matter changed. 
News came from the Marne valley that 
Americans were pitching into the fight, that 
it was old-fashioned, paste-'em-one-in-the- 
eye fighting of their own sort, that they were 
getting away with murder. And every 
American from Camp Lewis to Toul, said: 
'Gee, we're pretty good,' and became so by 
thinking it." 

And you can readily see what sort of effect 
this would have on the troops in France. 
Of course, every division, either on ship 
or already landing, began to feel that, after 
everything was said and done, the stories 
of enemy prowess were idle tales of the billets, 
and that there would really be nothing to it, 
when they would be given the chance to get 
into the game for good. They began to 
think that all of these weary months of train- 



FORGOTTEN FIGHTS OF THE A. E. F. 59 

ing was all "bunk" and unnecessary; that 
all they needed was the chance to take "a 
paste at that Big German Rifle Range," and 
they would show what sort of stuff they were 
made of. 

Accordingly, General Pershing became com- 
mander of a bunch of real fighting units, 
scarcely more than raw recruits, of only a few 
short months' training. Transformed, al- 
most over night, into units fit to put into 
immediate use at the fighting lines, should 
the necessity arise for throwing them into 
the breach at once. 

And, then and there, the policy of sending 
them into the fight at once was adopted, and, 
as one of our army men puts it: **A11 that 
happened from July 18th to November 11th 
followed as a natural though unforeseen con- 
sequence of what happened in June north- 
west of Chateau-Thierry. Just as an electric 
spark will, in a flash, take a jar of properly 
proportioned hydrogen and oxygen and turn 
it into water, so the current which, spitting 
blue flame and setting the whole world a- 
tingle, ran forth from Belleau Wood in June, 
1918, took that miscellaneous assortment of 
dubious Americans known as the A. E. F. 
and turned it into an army." 

Let us get the true perspective of the fight 
at the Chateau-Thierry area and see just 
what it means and really amounted to, from 
the purely military standpoint. After all, 
it was not so much of a miracle as we have been 
told it was. 



60 FORGOTTEN FIGHTS OF THE A. E. F. 

It is true that the Americans, with the aid 
of their almost exhausted allies, the French, 
did stop the German drive at the banks of 
the Marne, and, when the lines moved again, 
their direction was towards Germany. But 
let us also remember that, when the Germans 
smashed through the Chemin des Dames 
plateau area on May 27th, the allied troops 
had already established a new defensive line 
and system of well chosen positions, manned 
by men who were thoroughly schooled in 
their calling and highly capable of withstand- 
ing anything that the enemy would probably 
bring against them. And this line of defenses 
was in a position which met and, as history 
already recounts, turned the tide of German 
invasion. But that tide of invasion consisted 
of a German army which was almost already 
exhausted by its incredibly successful ad- 
vance, — an advance which carried it across 
the Aisne, through Tardenois and the Ourcq, 
and down to the very banks of the historic 
Marne. The enemy troops had already out- 
run even its own expectations and was tired 
out by its drive, and almost unsupported, 
on account of the inability of its supplies 
and reserves to keep pace with the rapidity 
of its advance. 

There has existed a sort of popular notion 
in this country, that our valiant allies, the 
French, were at this time, in full retreat 
through the advancing lines of American 
troops, and that our men were therefore 
forced to stand alone and meet the Hun 



FORGOTTEN FIGHTS OF THE A. E. F. 61 

hordes, bearing the brunt of the fray and 
finally pushing the invaders backward as 
their victorious waves swept forward in 
counter-attack. 

This notion is not at all true, and further- 
more mightily unfair to our valiant allies 
and friends, — the horizon-blue-clad poilus 
of France. 

From sources that are official, and, there- 
fore, of much more value as authoritative 
than would be even the works of the most 
highly credited correspondents or officers, 
the story of what really took place comes to 
me in this manner. The Americans were 
now operating under command of the French 
General Degoutte, who was commanding 
the corps in whose sector they were operat- 
ing. Opposing the German advance were 
two French divisions, which were already 
sadly depleted, and weary from their con- 
stant fighting of five days' duration, dis- 
heartened, and nearly having reached the 
limit of their physical endurance. Yet they 
were ordered to hold their ground until the 
Americans could get into line behind them. 
And hold they did, as best they could, and 
with the determination with which only the 
poilus of France can fight! After the Ameri- 
cans had formed their defensive lines, the 
French troops were to fall back through these 
lines and withdrew for a much-needed rest. 

Everything that took place after this time 

was strictly according to orders that had been 

ssued to the commanders of the several 



62 FORGOTTEN FIGHTS OF THE A. E. F. 

divisions engaged, as well as to the corps 
commander, General Degoutte. Therefore, 
the withdrawal of the exhausted French was 
no reflection upon their already proved 
indomitable spirit and stoicism, for in holding 
as they did just long enough for the resistance 
lines to be formed, they had already done 
their full share. 

As these facts were, of course, known to 
only those of high command or at least to 
only those who were entitled to know, the 
troops and also the correspondents, con- 
strued it faultily, and we find them con- 
tinually spreading this false impression abroad 
throughout the land. 

Certainly, these men have never lived and 
fought beside those same French poilus, or 
else they would never have even so much as 
dreamed of him yielding a precious inch of his 
beloved France to the foe. 

The spirit of the Yanks, as they advanced 
to the battlefront, through roads streaming 
with worn and weary and battered French 
troops, swarming to the rear in an almost 
bewildered and dazed sort of way, was little 
short of wonderful, for they continued their 
advance with spirits unbroken and nerves 
unshaken. And to most of them it surely 
must have seemed as if they alone were hold- 
ing firm, when all about them was crumbling 
before the gigantic Hun battering ram. 

And so the sunset of June 5th, 1918, brought 
to the battered and shell-torn streets of 
Chateau-Thierry, the light of victory and 



FORGOTTEN FIGHTS OF THE A. E. F. 63 

the promise of deliverance, as the rat-tat- 
tat of the guns resounded through the ruins of 
what had once been busy streets, and down 
along the banks of the river that divides the 
town into sections. The crumbling ruins of 
the bridges, turned red and dusty yellow in 
the slanting rays of the setting sun, the red- 
tiled roofs of the houses across the river, now 
scarred and torn by the incessant rain of 
shells and the spatter of shrapnel and machine 
gun fire, lent a sort of colorful touch to the 
plaster walls of the houses, whose smoking 
ruins stood, looking it seemed, with pitying 
and wistful windows calling to the spitting 
fire of the guns to win them back again to the 
folds of the tricolor of France. The bridge 
of the Marne, a crumpled ruin, — a pile of 
stones, now — with here and there the hud- 
dled form of some brave Yank or poilu, 
locked in death-grip with his opponent, in 
the blue-gray uniform of the guard, over 
whose silent forms sang the ominous song of 
the machine guns and the whine of the shells 
bursting beyond, in the further end of the 
town. 

And further on, from the Chateau garden, 
surrounded by its great stone wall, with its 
massive wooden gates, and with its courtyard 
and gardens strewn with the bodies of the 
slain; its flowers and plants trampled under 
foot of the surging hosts which, only a short 
time previous had been locked in deadly 
conflict; its well and lattice porticoes torn 
and twisted by the bursting shells, looked 



64 FORGOTTEN FIGHTS OF THE A. E. F. 

out and beyond to the tall tower of the cathe- 
dral, which now reflected the glory of the 
sunset, as if a new halo of glory had crowned 
its loft>^ spire. All was peaceful now, except 
for the patter of the distant machine guns, 
and the great round moon rose over soil 
redeemed for France! 
The Yanks had come! 



FORGOTTEN FIGHTS OF THE A. E. F. 65 

CHAPTER IV. 
Beginning of the Great July Counter. 

Perhaps a changing from the defensive to 
the offensive is the most difficult and delicate 
operation in the science of warfare. Yet that 
was precisely what Marshal Foch did when 
he took the initiative from the hands of von 
Ludendorff, and began to work the lines of 
battle backward, in that magnificent series 
of victories that marked the great July 
counter-stroke of 1918. And, furthermore, 
this operation was destined to carry the allied 
armies forward in one continuous sweep of 
victory that would have its ending only when 
the representatives of the German republic 
should meet to conclude an armistice on 
November 11th. 

Let us, therefore, examine the whole 
situation that confronted the allied command, 
as well as the method employed in the con- 
version of the enemy attacks into allied 
advantages. By doing this we shall bring into 
the proper perspective the part that was 
played in these operations by the American 
units engaged. 

It had always been the policy of the enemy 
to follow up each and every one of his major 
offensives by a short breathing spell, in order 
that his troops might be reformed and con- 
solidated in their new positions, before 



66 FORGOTTEN FIGHTS OF THE A. E. F. 

launching out again in other operations. 
Accordingly, it was nothing out of the or- 
dinary when he brought his offensive of May 
and June, 1918, to a halt, — or rather, had 
it halted for him, — at the Marne about the 
5th or 6th of June. 

Let us now divert our attention to the 
strength of the enemy forces which were 
massed along the section of front, known as 
the Argonne-Chateau-Thierry front. By 
the second week of July, the enemy had 
massed a total of sixty-three divisions, — 
every one of them refitted, reinforceed and 
rested, — in this vicinity. A great number 
of the enemy reserves were placed opposite 
the British in the Amiens salient; very few 
on the front from the Argonne forest to the 
Swiss border ; and a large number to the rear, 
in position to be rushed to any sector. Allied 
intelligence located eleven divisions behind 
General F. von Below's First Army and 
General von Einem's Third Army, both of 
the group of the German Crown Prince; in 
addition to the eighteen divisions already in 
the battle front. 

The German press was blatantly announc- 
ing that the allied armies could never again 
assume offensive tactics, as their reserves 
had already all been used up in resisting the 
German attacks. But, due to the increasing 
rapidity of transportation, American troops 
had been coming over so rapidly that the 
allies had a mass of reserves amounting to 
not less than seventy-two divisions. 



FORGOTTEN FIGHTS OF THE A. E. F. 67 

Knowing the time, place and strength of 
the enemy attack, which was delivered on the 
Champagne-Chateau-Thierry front on July 
15th, the allied command was able to dispose 
just enough of their forces along these lines 
to meet and hold the attack firmly. Then, 
two days after the attack was delivered, the 
armies of von Below and von Mudra (who 
had replaced von Einem) had engaged thirty- 
eight divisions, was holding eleven divisions 
in close support, and thereby reducing their 
reserves to about fifty-one divisions. They 
had gained but a few miles and were now being 
repulsed everywhere. This fact was because 
the twenty-seven allied divisions in front 
lines and nineteen in close reserve (part of 
the 6th, 5th and 4th French Armies), were 
able to reduce the power of the enemy to noth- 
ing while inflicting upon him terrible losses. 

On July 18th, when the enemy had in- 
volved about fifty divisions — or nearly one- 
fourth of his total forces on the western front, 
— in his hopeless drive in Champagne and the 
eastern side of the Marne salient. Marshal 
Foch struck. The blow was intended to fall 
upon the west side of this salient, thereby 
striking at the system of enemy communica- 
tions which were necessary to the enemy 
troops fighting on the opposite side of the 
salient. He could then crush the enemy 
forces between the closing wings of his armies 
or oblige them to break off the fighting. This 
would mean retreat under the most adverse 
conditions. 



68 FORGOTTEN FIGHTS OF THE A. E. F. 

And the French and American troops en- 
gaged in this maneuver carried it through with 
the precision and gallantry that proved them 
worthy of the best traditions of both nations. 

At the opening of the counter-offensive, 
the enemy was holding the western face of 
their salient, between Chateau-Thierry and 
the Aisne River with eleven divisions, with- 
out any support; while the allies had twelve 
divisions in line and ten more in reserve, 
ready to take their places for the assault 
early the next morning, — July 18th. 

In order that the surprise effect of the ad- 
vance might not be diminished, the attack 
went over without any artillery preparation. 
The advance was made along the front from 
the Aisne northwest of Soissons to Chateau- 
Thierry. Fire for accompaniment was laid 
down, and along the whole line a withering 
barrage tore the ground in front of our ad- 
vancing infantry. By nightfall the Yanks 
had smashed through the enemy trench sys- 
tems to an average depth of four miles. In 
this first day's battle, 17,000 prisoners and 
250 guns were taken. From this day forth, 
with undiminished vigor, the allied attacks 
continued to gain, sometimes greater and 
sometimes lesser distances, but always going 
forward, and the direct result of it all was the 
withering of the enemy initiative once and 
for all. 

There were three American divisions which 
took part in the offensive operations which 
began on the morning of July 18th, 1918, — 



FORGOTTEN FIGHTS OF THE A. E. F. 69 

viz., the 1st, 2d and 26th Divisions. Of 
these the 1st, lying a short distance south of 
the Aisne, with the 2d Division on its ri^ht 
was a part of the 20th Corps of the 10th 
French Army. The remaining units of the 
corps were: the 58th, 69th French Divisions 
and the 1st Moroccan Division. North of 
the 20th Corps, four divisions of the 1st 
French Army carried the lines to the Aisne 
and formed the extreme left of the attack Ac- 
cordmgly, the 20th Corps was disposed for 
action with the 1st American Division on the 
left, the 1st Moroccan Division in the center, 
and the 2d American Division on the right* 
covering a front of about six miles, and having 
the 58th and 69th French Divisions in reserve 
Then came two divisions of the 30th French 
Corps, three divisions of the 11th, two divi- 
sions of the 2d, and two divisions of the 7th 
Corps. Then the First American Corps, 
under General Hunter Liggett and consisting 
of: the 167th French Division on the left 
and the 26th American Division on the right. 
To the right of this corps, was the 38th French 
Corps, with the 39th French and the 3d 
American Divisions, from left to right, fol- 
lowed by the four divisions of the 3d Corps, 
three divisions of the 1st Colonial, four divi- 
sions of the 5th, three divisions of the 2d 
Italian, and four divisions of the 1st African 
Colonial Corps. These dispositions would 
carry the line beyond the city of Reims. 

Thus it was seen that the Americans were 
once again given the post of greatest danger, 



FORGOTTEN FIGHTS OF THE A. E. F. 71 

and therefore of greatest honor, for they were 
to drive into the center of the salient, capture 
the highlands southwest of Soissons, and then 
the front would naturally pivot upon these 
highlands in swinging northeast and north 
toward the Vesle River. This task was given 
to the 1st and 2d American Divisions and 
the 1st Moroccan Division. 

The 26th Division was entrusted with a 
most delicate and tedious operation, viz., 
that of marking time and acting as a pivot 
for the troops operating around the Foret 
de Villers-Cotterets, while these troops were 
hammering in the western bulge of the front 
and straightening it out to swing northward 
like a gate closing on the Vesle. Then, 
after the straightening process was com- 
pleted, the 26th was to become the swinging 
edge of the gate, advancing to the Vesle with 
longer gains than those troops to the west of 
it. 

The 3d American Division could, therefore, 
not begin its part of the work until all of this 
attack to the westward was well under way, 
and the enemy attack was stopped and driven 
backward. Then they too, pivoting on Reims, 
were likewise to close on the Vesle. 

Accordingly, the 1st Division went over 
the top on the morning of July 18th, into the 
gray dawn of the plateau between Curty and 
Missy-aux-Bois. The 18th and 16th In- 
fantries of the 1st Brigade, and the 26th and 
28th Infantries of the 2d Brigade, were sent 
forward for the attack. Before them and 



72 FORGOTTEN FIGHTS OF THE A. E. F. 

across the lines of the German 6th, 11th 
Bavarian and 42d Divisions, part of von 
Boehn's Seventh German Army, swept the 
barrage from the batteries of the 5th, 6th 
and 7th Field Artillery Regiments, supported 
by a number of French batteries. 

The country was level, open stretches 
which ran to the east and southeast, devoid 
of cover, except for the tree fringes which 
marked the deep ravine of Missy-aux-Bois, 
and, further on, the poplar-lined roadway that 
lay between Soissons and Paris. Just at 
the edge of the woodland was the little village 
of Missy; while still further on, was Berzy-le- 
Sec. 

Behind the charging doughboys, lay the 
deep-cut ravine between the villages of St. 
Pierre-Aigle and Laversine, on the eastern 
edge of which were the trenches which they 
had taken over from a brigade of the Moroc- 
cans the night before. 

Within two hours from the time of the 
jumping-off, the men of the 1st Division had 
overrun more than two miles of the tangle of 
enemy trenches and wire, and had covered 
more than half the distance across the open 
tableland to Missy. Then, two hours later, 
the second objective, — from Crevancon Farm 
to the eastern edge of the Missy Ravine, was 
reached, after a sharp and bloody struggle 
by the 26th and 28th Infantries in the Missy 
Ravine. 

The Yanks charged in the face of terrific 
machine gun fire, taking a series of enemy 




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74 FORGOTTEN FIGHTS OF THE A. E. F. 

nests along the ridge and then moving slowly 
down the ravine. Meanwhile the Boche 
gunners were filling this ravine with shells. 
A strongly fortified post at St. Amand Farm, 
near Missy Ravine, held up the advance for 
a time, sweeping the western slope of the 
valley, until a direct frontal attack was sent 
forward with bombing parties, to "mop it 
up." 

It was mopped! Later, strong resistance 
was encountered in a group of buildings, 
just as the sun peeped through the low 
hanging clouds. Here the enemy had in- 
stalled machine guns, behind stone garden 
walls and the foundations of the houses. 
The Yanks began methodically mopping up 
these nests, the men creeping toward the 
guns, whose fire was so high as to cause but 
few casualties. Then, suddenly, they leaped 
to their feet and rushed forward with a shower 
of grenades, thus escaping fairly well. 

By this time, the enemy had recovered from 
his initial surprise, and, the 18th Infantry 
having pushed on to its third objective, — 
Chaudun, — the 26th and 28th infantries were 
unable to push across the Soissons-Paris 
road, on the plateau between Missy and 
Ploisy. This was largely because of the in- 
tense machine gun fire from the flank, sweep- 
ing their rear from the ravine of Missy, which 
the 153d French Division had been unable 
to take. 

Missy Ravine was a thickly-grown tangle 
of trees and underbrush, laced with barbed- 



FORGOTTEN FIGHTS OF THE A. E. F. 75 

wire, so as to make it almost entirely im- 
passable. Masked machine guns enfiladed 
every inch of the ground, which was likewise 
swampy. It was therefore useless for tanks 
to attack the enemy positions. From the 
ravine, the open, level country, devoid of 
cover or buildings, and cut only by the Sois- 
sons-Paris roadway, sloped away, finally 
dropping suddenly into Ploisy Ravine. This 
plateau was cut by many sunken roads, 
which afforded admirable concealment for 
the enemy machine gunners. 

The enemy, during the night of July 18th, 
threw his 34th Division into line between 
Missy and Ploisy, between the 11th Bavarian 
and the 42d Divisions, and also put his 28th 
Division into the head of the Chazelle Ravine, 
before Chaudun. This was done to prevent 
the cutting of the Soissons-Paris road. 

The 1st Division's objective line was set 
between Berzy-le-Sec, on the heights of the 
Crise Valley and the important railways and 
roads within its valley, and extending south- 
eastward to Buzancy. This division there- 
fore sent the 16th and 18th Infantries for- 
ward to Chazelle, half way between Chadun 
and the Soissons-Paris railway. The attack 
began at four o'clock of the' 19th of July. 
Meantime, the 26th and 28th Infantries, 
half-crazed by thirst, galled by a frontal fire 
from Ploisy Ravine and by the rearward fire 
froni the Missy Ravine, could not cross the 
Paris-Soissons roadway. A section of French 
tanks waddled forward to support them, but 



76 FORGOTTEN FIGHTS OF THE A. E. F. 

these were shot to pieces on the edge of the 
Ploisy Ravine, — reminding one of the famous 
light brigade at Balaklava: 

"Their's not to reason why, 
Their's not to make reply, 
Their's but to do or die, 
Into the Valley of death, 
Into the mouth of hell, 
Rode the six hundred." 

As the front lay almost at right angles to 
the lines of the sector at this time, it was clear- 
ly necessary to re-align the front. Therefore, 
a savage attack was driven forward at 5.30 
in the evening, by the 2d Brigade, for the 
clearing of the head of Ploisy Ravine. The 
ranks were torn by shells and machine gun 
fire, but they reached the ravine, leaping at 
the flaming guns and tearing their way 
through the enemy lines, taking Ploisy Village 
and the ravine head. During the night, in 
pitchy blackness, in the vicinity of the stone- 
walled Courmelles Farm, a bitter struggle 
was waged. "A struggle of squads and 
little knots of men creeping and listening for 
one another; of quick, snarling rushes and 
dull blows; of sudden, blinding flashes of 
machine gun or rifle, through the Stygian 
blackness." So relates Captain Hanson, 
of the A. E. F. historical section. 

But the Yanks maintained their advance 
through Courmelles Farm, to the rim of 
Ploisy Ravine, — the last barrier between 
them and the battered heights of Berzy-le-Sec. 



FORGOTTEN FIGHTS OF THE A. E. F. 77 

And beyond lay the Crise Valley, with its 
steep slopes, covered with pine trees, and the 
road which ran parallel to the railway line 
through Soissons, past Courmelles Farm, in 
the 153d French Division's sector, and about 
2 miles northeast by north of Berzy-le-Sec. 
Set on a hillside is Berzy-le-Sec, with a 
broken forest nestling close at the foot of 
the^ hill,— a battered village, silhouetted 
against the sunset. And below it were wheat- 
fields, — dotted with those blood-red poppies 
of France! All a bit of typical French coun- 
tryside. 

If one will carefully examine the map and 
apply what little knowledge of military 
science that he may possess, combined with 
a slight knowledge of tactical problems, it 
is easily seen that, should the Americans 
succeed in taking Berzy, it would mean that 
the Soissons-Oulchy le Chateau railway and 
the Soissons-Chateau Thierry highway could 
no longer be used for transport into the 
Marne salient from Soissons, — the railhead. 
In short, the salient would be lost, as Berzy 
was the key to it, as well as the salient be- 
tween the Vesle and Marne Rivers, and which 
would now become untenable. 

Therefore, the enemy threw into the line 
protecting this village and its important 
heights another division, — the 46th Reserve. 

Knowing that the 153d French Division 
was still too far from the village to strike, 
being still engaged on the far side of the 
Ploisy Ravine, the staff of the 20th Corps, 



78 FORGOTTEN FIGHTS OF THE A. E. F. 

accordingly, ordered the 1st Division to take 
Berzy-le-Sec at 2 P.M. on July 20th. The 
2d Brigade was designated, plus one battalion 
from the divisional reserve, for the operation. 

After a furious barrage of two hours' 
duration, noon until 2 P.M., the lines moved 
forward, striking at Berzy and the spur 
north of it. As our lines advanced, the ruins 
of Berzy, the hill and roadways literally spat 
fire in our faces, while shrapnel burst with 
its sinister and spiteful crack above our 
heads. Time after time, throughout the 
afternoon and night, the lines surged back 
and forth in attack and counter-attack. 
Machine gun nests were taken and retaken, 
and the opposing infantry grappled with one 
another with bayonets and trench-knives, 
grenades and clubbed rifles. 

Berzy was still in the possession of the 
enemy at sunset of July 20th. "Through the 
night its guns, like those of a beleagued 
fortress, continued to flame. In it stood at 
bay the last German garrison of that plateau 
south of Soissons, with the whole western 
front of the Marne salient pinned upon it, 
which had been for so long a black menace 
over Paris." 

Finally, early on the morning of the 21st, 
after artillery preparation of three hours or 
more, and which reduced Berzy practically 
to ruins, — heaps of ruins, — the Yanks ad- 
vanced again. This was to be their supreme 
eff^ort and the first wave rose up and rolled 
toward, into and over the ruins of the village. 



FORGOTTEN FIGHTS OF THE A. E. F. 79 

Machine guns spat in their faces from the 
ruins ahead ; yet they drove through the vil- 
lage, past the ruined church and along the 
flaming street to the Crise Valley. Here 
they looked down along the Chateau-Thierry 
road, parallel to the stream for a distance, to 
Soissons, in the midst of its hills. 

The victory was won ! 

The 1st Brigade had already advanced 
across the Soissons-Chateau Thierry road, 
and was advancing down the valley of the 
Crise, the city and yards of Soissons were 
open to artillery fire, while the 26th Infantry 
lay on the plateau in a maze of sunken roads. 

Then, during the night of July 22d, in the 
Crise Valley beyond Berzy-le-Sec, the 1st 
Division was relieved by the 15th Scottish 
Division of the British forces, and sent back- 
ward to Dommartin, northeast of Paris, for 
a rest. The 1st Division had suffered 7,000 
casualties,— 1,816 by the 28th Infantry alone, 
-^not a single man being taken by the enemy; 
sixty per cent, of its infantry officers were 
killed or wounded; in addition to the killed 
and wounded enemy, it had taken 3,500 
prisoners, 86 field guns, numbers of machine 
guns, munitions and other material of war, 
and had advanced eleven kilometers in four 
days, against the untiring efforts of parts of 
seven enemy divisions, and broke the hinge 
of the enemy's defensive line between the 
Aisne and the Marne. 

We shall now see how the 2d Division fought 
its way forward in the great July attack, 



80 FORGOTTEN FIGHTS OF THE A. E. F. 

past the Foret de Villers-Cotterets, Vaux- 
castille Ravine, Bois de Leonore, the village 
of Vierzy, Beaurepaire Farm, Chevigny Farm, 
and also find out how it was that the 2d 
Division did so much toward giving the 
Marne salient so prominent a place in the 
history of the war. 



FORGOTTEN FIGHTS OF THE A. E. F. 81 



CHAPTER V. 

The Second Division at Vierzy and in 
the foret de villers-cotterets. 

If the reader could journey to the stretch 
of countryside that lies southwest of Soissons 
he would find himself standing in the midst 
of a land that has been mutilated almost 
beyond belief. Everywhere are trenches, 
pillboxes and observation posts, but hardly 
any signs of human habitation, — mere shells 
of homes that have long since been pounded 
into shapeless masses of stone and mortar, — 
for he would be standing in a part of the 
battle-fields which have witnessed some of 
the most terrific fighting of the whole con- 
flict. 

Upon this tortured land, where once 
throbbed the life of industry and echoed the 
laughter of children, armies have struggled, 
staggered, died as the reeling and bending 
lines, like waves of the sea, swept back and 
forth under the smashing charges and coun- 
ter-attacks of desperate, maddened men. 
Silence now reigns over the fearful wilder- 
ness where only a few short months ago the 
roar of artillery, the whine of shells, and the 
crack of rifles, mingled with the shrieks of 
the mangled and the moans of the dying in 
an inferno of destruction. A tree, here and 
there, shattered and broken, with branches 



82 FORGOTTEN FIGHTS OF THE A. E. F. 

torn and twisted, still stands, — gaunt specter 
of death which had swept across the plains. 

Such is the setting for the theatre of fight- 
ing of the 2d Division during the initial stage 
of the July counter attack of 1918. 

Fresh from the terrible and bloody fight- 
ing in its sector northwest of Chateau- 
Thierry, with the proud record of its fight 
at Bouresches and in the Bois de Belleau, 
the 2d Division was relieved from its support 
positions on the night of July 16th-17th, 
being conveyed in motor lorries to a point 
near Marcilly, on the western side of the 
Foret de Villers-Cotterets. 

Shortly after its arrival there, orders were 
received for an attack that was to be de- 
livered at 4.35 on the morning of July 18th. 
This attack was to be delivered on the front 
which lay along the eastern edge of the Foret 
de Villers-Cotterets, an immense stretch of 
forest about ten or more square miles in 
area, and which lay in the front of the 2d 
Division. This forest was cut by a network 
of main and farm roads, which was later the 
cause of a great deal of trouble and confusion 
in carrying out the plans of the attack. 

Night had fallen, and with it a driving 
rain, making the pitchy blackness doubly 
impenetrable, — in fact so much so that one 
could not even see the man ahead of him, 
though he was only a pace or so away. The 
hour for the advance was rapidly drawing 
near, and yet the troops were seemingly so 
much confused that it would be next to the 



FORGOTTEN FIGHTS OF THE A. E. F. 83 

impossible to have them reach their positions 
in time for the attack. But they were there. 

The artillery barrage fell with a roar and 
crash on the enemy positions, as day was 
breaking. The first line battalions of the 23d 
Infantry on the right and the 9th Infantry 
and 5th Marines on the left, went over be- 
hind it. Breathless and staggering from 
over a mile and a half of double-time, they 
reached their places at the appointed minute, 
and then hurled themselves upon the first 
line enemy trenches, — like great gray specters 
coming out of the dawn. 

Lying on the edge of the forest near 
Chavigny Farm, on the right, and Carrefour 
des Fourneaux on the left, the 2d Division 
sector ran northeast for one and a half miles 
over open, rolling country, across Verte 
Feuille and Beaurepaire Farms. Then it 
swung to the right, using the hill west of 
Vauxcastille as a pivot, and narrowing grad- 
ually, ran eastward and a bit south across the 
ravine of Vauxcastille and the Bois de Leonore 
north of it; then on to the ravine and village 
of Vierzy, where it crossed the Paris-Soissons 
railway tunnel. From this point, crossing 
a high, flat ridge, devoid of buildings but 
intersected by some farm roads, it crossed the 
main Soissons-Chateau Thierry road between 
the villages of Taux and Hartennes, ending 
in the Bois d'Hartennes. 

The enemy counter-barrage fire opened at 
once, but the 2d Battalion of the 23d In- 
fantry, using rifles only as weapons, was on 







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FORGOTTEN FIGHTS OF THE A. E. F. 85 

their first objective line, — Beaurepaire Farm, 
— less than a quarter of an hour after going 
over the top. The 9th Infantry and the 5th 
Marines had also reached their line. 

Having reached this line, the 2d Division 
now plunged into the ravine of the Bois 
Leonore and Vauxcastille, fought its way 
across the marshy woods and up over the 
embankment of the Paris-Soissons railway. 
Then, after a brief but sanguinary battle 
with enemy infantry and machine guns, 
pushed onward to the plateau overlooking 
Vierzy. 

Advancing in sectors parallel to that of the 
2d Division, the 1st Moroccan Division, on 
the left, advancing toward Lachelle and the 
ravines beyond, and the 38th French Divi- 
sion, on the right, striking in the direction of 
Montremboeuf Farm, fought their way for- 
ward as the 2d Division (American) was ad- 
vancing in its own sector. 

As the 2d Division had already entered 
the western side of the village of Vierzy, and 
although it was practically surrounded, — 
north, west, and a bit on the south sides, — 
the enemy still clung determinedly to the 
rest of the village. They also put up stiff 
machine gun resistance from dugouts and in 
the Vauxcastille Ravine, where our troops of 
the support waves encountered determined 
resistance. Our casualties were, therefore, 
quite severe. 

Nevertheless, although the men had been 
without food or water for over a day, the 



86 FORGOTTEN FIGHTS OF THE A. E. F. 

advance was pushed forward at once in the 
direction of the Bois d'Hartennes. At the 
same time, a renewed attack was made upon 
Vierzy. In this attack, the 9th and 23d 
Infantries went forward, being later sup- 
ported by the French tanks and one battal- 
ion of the Moroccans. At eight in the 
evening our advance again encountered very 
stubborn resistance, more especially from the 
intensity of the enemy artillery and machine 
gun fire. 

Our lines pushed on about two miles, until 
the 9th Infantry was on the plateau south 
of Charantigny and the 23d Infantry half- 
way between Vierzy and Tigny. Our right 
wing was bent southwest, presenting its 
whole front a pronounced salient across open 
ground, with the enemy on the south and 
east of it. 

Vierzy was taken, but the ground was 
covered with wounded, and it was deemed 
impossible to further advance. Accordingly, 
those who remained dug-in, and then the men 
of the 102d Engineers, following their pre- 
rogative as engineers of digging all night and 
fighting all day, advanced through the rem- 
nants of the 9th Infantry and 6th Marines, 
and began to drive forward again. This ad- 
vance reached Tigny, where, on the edge of 
the Bois d'Hartennes and about three- 
fourths of a mile from the Soissons-Chateau 
Thierry road, the remnants of the engineers 
were brought to a stop. They entrenched 



FORGOTTEN FIGHTS OF THE A. E. F. 87 

themselves, and, with machine guns, held 
every inch of their gains. 

That is the kind of stuff the men of the 
engineer regiments were made of, — they could 
construct, destruct or fight with equal 
ability, — and most of the time, they were 
working all night and then sent in to fight 
all day! 

The 2d Division's casualties had now 
reached such numbers as to almost exhaust 
even their wonderful driving power. It had 
been reduced to about half its strength, — 
the 23d Infantry having 37 officers and 1,478 
men left out of 99 officers and 3,400 men. 

Here the 2d Division was relieved by the 
58th French Division during the night of 
the 19th-20th, resting till noon the next day, 
in the forest. 

The 2d Division had advanced 7 miles in 
26 hours, — one of its regiments, the 23d 
Infantry, took 2,175 prisoners from 11 dif- 
ferent enemy divisions. This regiment also 
took two batteries of 150mm guns, five bat- 
teries of 77mm guns, one battery of 210mm, 
about 100 machine guns and 15,000 rounds 
of 77mm ammunition. 

And that sort of fighting which the Boche 
learned from the Yanks of the 2d Division in 
the Foret de Villers-Cotterets, in July, 1918, 
was the thing that scared the Germans to 
death. 



88 FORGOTTEN FIGHTS OF THE A. F. F. 



CHAPTER VI. 

The "Yankee" Division Holds the Pivot 
at bouresches. 

As has already been brought out in the pre- 
ceding chapter, the 26th or "Yankee" Di- 
vision had been entrusted with a most delicate 
and tedious part of the operations during the 
counter-stroke of July, 1918. This operation 
consisted of marking time and acting as the 
pivot for the troops which were operating 
around the Foret de Villers-Cotterets, while 
those troops were hammering in the western 
bulge of the front and straightening it out for 
the swing northward like a gate closing on the 
Vesle. 

The Yankee Division was under the com- 
mand of Major General C. R. Edwards, at 
this time, and consisted of the 51st Infantry 
Brigade, consisting of the 101st and 102d 
Infantries and 102d Machine Gun Battalion; 
the 52d Infantry Brigade, with the 103d and 
104th Infantries and the 103d Machine Gun 
Battalion; the 51st Field Artillery Brigade, 
with the 101st, 102d and 103d Field Artillery 
Regiments, and the 101st Engineers and other 
divisional troops. 

The "Yankee" Division had already be- 
come highly veteran in all of the various 
departments and branches of trench warfare, 



FORGOTTEN FIGHTS OF THE A. E. F. 89 

for it had been in the line, during the pre- 
ceding winter along the historic Chemin des 
Dames, entering that sector on February 6th, 
1917, and remaining there for fifty days. 
Then, too, it had spent eighty-six more days 
in the American "Old Home Sector," north- 
west of Toul. It was the first American 
division, not regular army, to take part in a 
great offensive operation, and it also took 
part in every other great offensive operation 
until the ending of hostilities. A record, 
indeed, to be proud of, and one which placed 
the 26th Division in the first place among the 
National Guard units that took part in our 
history overseas. 

To say the least, the country northwest 
of Chateau-Thierry was not a very pleasant 
sort of place to be during those ever-memora- 
ble days of mid-July, 1918. It was a series of 
shallow and incomplete trenches, extending 
from near Vaux and Bouresches, around east 
and the northern edges of the Bois de Bel- 
leau (Belleau Wood), to a point near Bus- 
siares. These positions were under constant 
harassing fire from enemy batteries, and like- 
wise many enemy machine guns and snipers 
were comfortably installed all along the edges 
of the woods, banks of the Ru Gobert Creek, 
and in the ruined villages of Torcy and Bel- 
leau, close to our front lines. 

The 26th Division took over these lines 
during the night of July 16th, and immediately 
that ever-present and necessary phase of 
trench-life known as "raiding" set in. 



90 FORGOTTEN FIGHTS OF THE A. E. F. 

As the majority of my readers have never 
been out there in the darkness of the trench 
areas, where the lights that come and go are 
only the fitful brilliancy of the flares and sig- 
nals or the sputter of the angry little hidden 
machine guns; where the slightest unguarded 
move means almost certain death, perhaps 
it would be well to try to picture to them just 
what a raid is like. 

With the lengthening of the shadows, and 
the setting of the sun behind the purple 
crests of the torn hillsides of Picardy, the 
whole face of the fighting is changed, for now 
the men creep out through the mists and 
shadows into No Man's Land, there to meet 
other men, face to face and hand to hand, and 
then, occur the slight patrol engagements of 
the raiding parties. Quite naturally, these 
raids, for the most part, are never mentioned 
m the communiques of the day, but they 
nevertheless form an important part of the 
intelligence work of the fighting forces, for 
it is during these raids that prisoners are 
taken and much useful information obtained. 

Night life along the front is both weird 
and at the same time very picturesque. 
There are flares, flares, flares, as far as the 
eye can see, bursting into brief brilliance 
and then leaving the night blacker than 
ever. The slightest unusual movement or 
suggested alarm sets vari-colored signal rock- 
ets hissing from the trenches. Then comes 
the shattering voice of the vicious machine 
guns, spraying steel- jacketed pellets of death 



FORGOTTEN FIGHTS OF THE A. E. F. 91 

with reckless fury. Small parties of men now 
creep snake-like out through No Man's 
Land, cut their way through the lines of tan- 
gled wire, and then lie in wait just behind 
the enemy parapets, where they can hear all 
that is said and all that is going on within 
the enemy lines. The slightest noise or the 
grating of a pebble will bring down the fury 
of the machine guns that are hidden behind 
the mounds of earth or in the edge of the 
thickets before you. You lie there, scarcely 
daring to breathe for fear of being heard by 
the enemy, and never daring to move until 
the signal comes. A chain of Verey lights 
flash upward to the right, lighting up the 
surrounding country and its maze of trenches 
and tangled wire with almost the brilliance 
of broad daylight. Then comes the signal. 
You throw yourself forward into the enemy 
line; clean the section of trenches alloted to 
your section, taking prisoners and then dash- 
ing backward across the shell-torn and tan- 
gled debris of No Man's Land to your own 
lines. You drop safely into your own trenches 
again just as the inevitable retaliatory fire 
can come from the enemy positions. 

Then comes the first faint streak of the 
coming dawn, and the face of the front is 
gradually changed, as the heavy mists lift 
their clinging curtain from the torn and 
tangled masses of earth and wire that have so 
lately seen so much feverish activity and such 
bloody struggling of desperate men. 



92 FORGOTTEN FIGHTS OF THE A. E. F. 

Such is a raiding party, and many are the 
tales that the boys of the A. E. F. Combat 
Divisions can tell of these "parties" too. 

After a week of this sort of life, the whole 
thing quite naturally resolved itself into the 
same continuous round of monotonous duties, 
and the men of the 26th Division were eager 
to have things happen. 

And happen they did, and rather rapidly, 
too, for they received orders on the night of 
July 17th, calling for an advance the next 
morning. 

The problem which faced the Americans 
was rather a difficult one, if considered from 
purely tactical viewpoints, for the "Yankee" 
Division was to perform the tedious and dif- 
ficult operation of acting as the pivot, upon 
which should swing the entire fortunes of the 
whole series of operations which were to be 
undertaken by the First Corps in the great 
battle. This is a most exacting tactical 
problem, and, in this instance, it was solved 
as follows: (1) the left of the 26th Division 
was to attack north and northeast, pivoting 
on the village of Bouresches, and guiding on 
the 167th French Division, on its left, but 
never getting ahead of the 167th, while swing- 
ing gradually northeast, until the whole 
front of the left should have been straightened ; 
(2) having accomplished this maneuver, the 
26th was now to attack with the right wing 
of the division, — half of it eastward and half 
northward, taking the woods in front, then 
executing a half-turn to the northeast, to 



FORGOTTEN FIGHTS OF THE A. E. F. 93 

bring the front into alignment with the general 
front; (3) from this point the advance was 
to be carried straight-away. 

The division had already been disposed as 
follows: (1) the 101st Infantry was on the 
extreme right, near Vaux, and facing north- 
ward; (2) the 102d, facing eastward, extending 
a trifle beyond the village of Bouresches ; (3) 
the 104th, from its position in the Bois de 
Belleau, faced eastward and northeastward; 
and (4) the 103d, on the extreme left of the 
line, facing northeast and north. 

Accordingly, at 4.35 o'clock on the morning 
of July 18th, and under the cover of the neu- 
tralization fire laid down by the 101st Field 
Artillery, the 52d Brigade, advancing three 
battalions, went through the mists of the 
morning toward the enemy. The 2d Bat- 
talion of the 103d Infantry was advanced 
in a northeasterly direction from its position 
in the Bois de Belleau, with the objective 
of taking the railway line in the creek valley 
between Bouresches and Belleau villages; 
the 3d Battalion of the 104th, advancing 
northward, with objectives set as Belleau 
village and Givry, as well as the railway line 
that ran between them; the remaining bat- 
talion, the 3d Battalion of the 103d Infantry, 
on the left of the brigade sector, was to at- 
tack northward, with objectives at Torcy 
and the railway beyond that village. 

The 201st Division of von Boehn's Seventh 
German Army was encountered and sur- 
prised, putting the 3d Battalion of the 103d 



94 FORGOTTEN FIGHTS OF THE A. E. F. 

Infantry inside of Torcy and pushing for- 
ward, taking the grade of the railroad and the 
creek bank. Here the positions were con- 
solidated. The center battalion, the 3d 
Battalion of the 104th, had already become 
so confused in inky blackness of the Bois de 
Belleau that the advance was delayed some- 
what. But, when they finally started out of 
the forest, the enemy, now thoroughly aroused, 
was pushed backward, as the Yanks cleaned 
up Belleau and then Givry, with their shin- 
ing bayonets. Then, having advanced their 
flanks up the slopes of Hill 193, north of 
Givry, they continued onward, reaching a 
point half-way up that hill before they could 
be stopped. 

Hill 193 was found to be untenable, and 
our troops there were recalled, the enemy 
gunners re-occupying it, and its commanding 
positions, from which they poured a wither- 
ing fire in enfilade westward along the front 
of the 167th French Division, as well as en- 
filading our entire front in the creek valley 
or the hills east of it, as far as Bouresches. 
This forced the 2d Battalion of the 103d, 
which had advanced to the railroad and the 
creek beyond, to retire from the creek line 
and to cling with the utmost difficulty to 
the grade of the railroad. Here they dug 
their fox-holes and stuck! 

But, across the fire-swept belt in their rear, 
it was impossible to bring supplies and am- 
munition, and after dark, they withdrew to 
the edge of the woods. However, a detach- 



FORGOTTEN FIGHTS OF THE A. E. F. 95 

ment of the 102d, which had advanced with 
them, still managed to retain possession of 
the slightly less-exposed point of the Boures- 
ches railway station. As for the battalions 
in Torcy and those in Belleau and Givry, 
they had not fared so badly where they now 
lay, although the ground between them and 
the woods was an inferno. 

As for the troops which were being torn 
to bits by the enfilade fire from Hill 193, 
there was nothing to do now, that is, nothing 
except to await the arrival of the French 
division on the Givry-Monthiers line. 

Then, assuming that the French would 
attack with them, a general advance of the 
26th Division was ordered for 3 o'clock of the 
afternoon of the 20th, with the object of 
aligning the front facing northeast on the 
line of crests beyond the valley of the creek 
and running from Les Brusses Farm (one 
kilometer west of Belleau), through Hill 190, 
to La Goneterie Farm. 

No preparatory fire was employed, except 
for an accompanying barrage, and the attack 
was made with the 51st brigade sending 
forward the 3d Battalion of the 102d Infantry, 
northeastward into the Bois de Bouresches. 
These woods were cleared, then, the 3d 
Battalion of the 101st, on the right, attacked 
the Bois de la Halmardiere, north of them, 
echeloning on left, and thus swinging itself 
facing northeast also. 

In the left sector, the 52d Brigade had a 
much harder fight, due to the shifting of 



96 FORGOTTEN FIGHTS OF THE A. E. F. 

battalions under enemy fire from their north 
front in order to send forward their attack 
eastward. This involved cautious maneuver- 
ing. They advanced, however, from Belleau, 
up the railway, across the creek and took 
Les Brusses Farm. At the same time the 
1st Battalion of the 103d advanced from Bois 
de Belleau until they had dug themselves in 
firmly in possession of Hill 190, as well as 
being in liaison with troops in the Bois de 
Bouresches, by six o'clock that evening. 

The French, however, could not take 
Hill 193, in spite of the fact that they made 
several magnificent attacks, and therefore, 
all during the night, the enemy guns swept 
the American lines, isolating the battalion 
at Les Brusses Farm. 

But the main part of the problem had been 
worked out, and, July 21st, the enemy, re- 
pulsed on a front of about sixty miles, and 
fearing that they might be pocketed in the 
Chateau-Thierry salient, was in full retreat. 

"Now it was that, leaving behind them at 
last the woods and the fields in which for 
more than seven weeks, while the wheat 
ripened and the poppies bloomed and faded, 
the doggedness of America had been pitted 
against the stubbornness of Germany, the 
26th swept forward in pursuit." 

Shall we men of the A. E. F. ever forget 
those multitudes of blood-red waving pop- 
pies of Picardy and Artois and Flanders? 
Poppies in those broad French wheat-fields, 
on those pleasant slopes of France; poppies 



1^ ' 

9> 













^ 

* 1. 



X 



98 FORGOTTEN FIGHTS OF THE A. E. F. 

which every day became a deeper blood-red. 
nodding and dancing in the soft breezes of 
summer, while above them the skylarks sang 
lilting, liquid tunes, during that wonderful 
and most beautiful month of all the year, 
in any country and in any clime, — June! 
Poppies reddening in the fields along the road- 
way that led over that rolling French coun- 
tryside toward the little town of Monthiers, 
seemingly unmindful of the spiteful rattle 
as the machine guns played from their masked 
coverts! Over those same poppies, too, 
rang the sharp and singing song of the shrap- 
nel, as it greets the coming morning, among 
the bruised and shell- torn fields of Artois. 

And oh, how those stalwart and brave 
Yankee lads used to love those tiny blood- 
red poppies of Flanders! And how they used 
to press them in their letters to the home- 
folks, or else place them gently within the 
sacred little folder where they kept those 
pictures of the loved ones! And how they 
used to wear them next their hearts as they 
leaped to the big advance, down through the 
poppied wheatfields to the flaming woods 
ahead. And, then, as the sunset with its 
mellow light, came to bathe the torn and 
tortured world of their existence, broken 
and bruised and trampled, the tiny poppies 
had likewise shared in the day of victory, — 
broken and bruished and dead as were their 
brave knights in khaki whose helms they had 
decorated in the fray! And, yonder in the 
woodland, where the flashing rifles and bay- 



FORGOTTEN FIGHTS OF THE A. E. F. 99 

onets shine in the sunset glow, still other 
''Knights of the Poppies" were holding the 
line with their files. 

''Poppies in the wheatfields; 
How still beside them lie 
Scattered forms that stir not 
When the star-shells burst on high, 
Gently o'er them bending 
Beneath the moon's soft glance. 
Poppies in the wheatfields 
On the ransomed hills of France." 

(Author unknown.) 

Ail day long on July 21st, the Yankee 
Division marched across country in columns, 
headed by advance guards, as the old I. D. 
R. required, and not until evening, after a 
march of nearly nine kilometers had led the 
advance far across the Soissons-Chateau 
Thierry highway, that heavy machine gun 
fire stopped the forward movement and 
brought the warning that the enemy had 
made a stand in the broad, shallow creek val- 
ley in which lie the tiny villages of Trugny 
and, one kilometer north of it, Epieds. 

East of these villages, up the gently slop- 
ing fields, stood the Bois de Trugny, filled 
with enemy machine guns. 

In the heavy mists of the gray morning of 
July 22d, the 26th Division attacked, driv- 
ing forward one battalion each of the 103d 
and 104th toward Epieds, two and one-half 
battalions of the 102d against Trugny, and 



100 FORGOTTEN FIGHTS OF THE A. E. F. 

two battalions of the 101st moving along the 
Bois de Barbillon, to flank those villages. 

Our batteries, further to the rear, did not 
know very definitely where the front was, 
and could not, therefore, deliver a very ef- 
fective barrage, while the enemy artillery, 
adjusted by their planes, deluged our lines 
with gas and high explosives. 

An enemy strong point at La Gouttiere 
Farm, in the 167th French sector, which 
galled our troops on the left flank and rear, 
proved highly annoying to the advance, but 
on they went, on the left and center, into 
the edges of the villages before they were 
turned back. The 101st Machine Gun Bat- 
talion, skirting with its infantry, the Bois 
de Barbillon, penetrated the Bois de Trugny, 
and when finally forced backward by con- 
centrated fire, stopped defiantly directly 
south of Trugny and stayed there, a thorn in 
the enemy flank. 

Three battalions of the 52d Brigade re- 
peated the attack on the left during the after- 
noon, but La Gouttiere Farm was still in the 
hands of the enemy. The French division 
was being engaged bitterly beating off^ enemy 
counters, with the assistance of the 26th 
American Division Artillery, which had ex- 
tended its zone of fire entirely across the 
French sector. 

On the morning of July 23d, our artillery 
dropped destructive fire on the enemy posi- 
tions, in preparation for an attack on the 
Bois de Trugny. The 101st Infantry, work- 



FORGOTTEN FIGHTS OF THE A. E. F. 101 

ing with the 101st Engineers, made the ad- 
vance, and although slow progress was made 
at first, the line was pushed into the edge of 
the woods. Then our positions encountered 
heavy machine gun concentration in front 
and on both flanks, which was highly de- 
structive. The attackers, accordingly suffered 
heavily, being forced to fall back to the other 
edge of the woods. 

The 56th Infantry Brigade, of the 28th 
Division, was now placed under the command 
of the 26th, by the Corps command, in order 
that the driving forward of the attack should 
not stop. Intelligence headquarters now re- 
ported a further enemy withdrawal, and once 
again the allied forces swept majestically 
forward across the hills of Artois. The ad- 
vance of the 26th Division was pushed for- 
ward in the direction of the Jaulgonne-Fere 
en Tardenois highway, northeast of the 
Bois de Trugny. through the Foret de Fere. 
Here it was held up by machine gun fire, 
just west of the road, and which came from 
the direction of the Croix Rouge Farm, forc- 
ing them to dig-in along this line for the night. 
Here the 26th Division was relieved by 
the 42d Division, and the weary "Yankee" 
Division left the 51st Brigade Artillery and 
the 101st Engineers to go on with the men of 
the "Rainbow." The remainder of the 
26th were drawn back to the area of Entre- 
pilly, on July 26th. 

In its eight days of battle, the "Yankee" 
Division had advanced eighteen and one-half 



102 FORGOTTEN FIGHTS OF THE A. E. F. 

kilometers, had taken about 250 prisoners, 4 
field pieces, numerous machine guns, and 
great quantities of ammunition. Its losses 
were 5,300 men, of whom 600 were killed. 

Where the lads of the "Yankee" Division 
have fallen upon the battle-fields there would 
they rest, for, to them, there could be no 
holier hills found than those hills of France 
to hold the soldier's clay. Deep in the hearts 
of their fellow-countrymen their fast, firm 
and immortal sepulcher shall ever be, greater 
than all the tombs of ancient kings. They 
have served their country overseas, and 
loved her, — dying with a heart that sings! 



FORGOTTEN FIGHTS OF THE A. E. F. 103 



CHAPTER VII. 

With Our Second Corps at the Hinden- 
BURG Line. 

If my readers could be dropped down into 
the stretch of French countryside that lies 
along the Canal du Nord, which runs be- 
tween Saint Quentin and Cambrai, he would 
see that, after all, for the most part the battle 
fronts are pretty much alike along the entire 
line from Switzerland to the turbulent waters 
of the North Sea. Unnumbered dugouts, 
many of them made of concrete, still line the 
roadsides or honeycomb the slopes of the 
hills. At commanding points, machine gun 
emplacements and observation posts, con- 
structed alike of masonry, with steel beams 
and reinforced concrete, stand as lonely sen- 
tinels over the desolation they helped to 
create. Wire entanglements, broken wagons, 
pieces of artillery, cartridge cases, and frag- 
ments of weapons bear mute testimony to 
the frightfulness of which they were a part. 

The devastated area in France and Belgium 
extends for over three hundred miles. Its 
average breadth is probably ten miles, and 
in all this region there is hardly a house but 
has been either totally destroyed or badly 
damaged. The gifts of nature and the 
products of man alike are ravaged by the holo- 
caust of war. Think of the tragedy of it 



104 FORGOTTEN FIGHTS OF THE A. E. F. 

all! Remember that most of this area was 
not the scene of one battle alone, but was the 
cauldron in which, for four years, had been 
brewed the pottage of the most destructive 
warfare known to history. 

But the rains of the French springtime were 
coaxing the grasses and daisies forth from 
their winter coverts, — covering the great 
gaping scars of war. Daisies nodded their 
heads in the winds, and masses of poppies, — 
those poppies of song and story, — gorgeous 
in their brilliant red, gave warmth and color 
to the somber scene. 

If the reader could have entered the lines 
with the men of the 27th Division before Le 
Catelet, on that memorable September morn- 
ing, 1918, he would have been looking across 
the rolling French countryside toward per- 
haps the strongest point in that iron-bound 
position, behind which the enemy were 
standing and declaring to the Allied forces: 
"Thus far you will come, and no farther!" 

From a position within the confines of 
Guillemont Ferme, one looks down across a 
succession of rolling valleys toward Le 
Catelet, the objective of some of the units 
of the 27th Division. To the right of Guille- 
mont Ferme is Claymore Valley, with Dirk 
Valley at its right, down which the road runs 
from Malakoff and Quennemont Farms to 
Bony, which lay just inside of the great bands 
of wire and trenches of the Hindenburg 
Line. Quennemont Ferme lies about five 
or six hundred yards northwest by north of 



FORGOTTEN FIGHTS OF THE A. E. F. 105 

Malakoff Wood, a tiny patch of woodland, in- 
terlaced with the enemy lines of trenches 
and bands of wire entanglements. Further 
on, within the enemy positions, one could 
see the point of the hillside, overlooking the 
valley of the Escaut River, and likewise 
the extreme northern end of the great Canal 
Tunnel, where it begins its three-mile journey 
under the hillsides that lie before the town of 
Le Catelet. Such is but a fleeting glance at 
the terrain over which the men of our own 
27th Division were to advance in their at- 
tack of September 29th, against the so-called 
impregnable positions of the Hindenburg 
Line. 

Perhaps it would be well to correct another 
erroneous impression which has been pretty 
much broadcast since the ending of the great 
conflict, viz., that the Hindenburg Line was 
nothing but a sort of local feature of the sector 
occupied by the 27th and 30th American 
Divisions, and some few Australians. Such 
was not the case, for the Hindenburg Line, 
which was the enemy's best bet in defensive 
positions, ran from the seacoast near the 
Belgian border, the entire length of the 
western front and ended in the Vosges coun- 
try near Epinal. It had been constructed with 
the same care and impregnability throughout 
its entire length, and was to have been the 
greatest depth of Allied penetration. 

And so it was that, while the majority of 
our troops were madly fighting through 
drenching rains, and knee deep in mud of the 



106 FORGOTTEN FIGHTS OF THE A. E. F. 

Argonne; through swampy ground and deep- 
est forest tangles; driving their lines forward 
through every conceivable sort of an obstacle, 
up the slopes of shell-torn hills, only to meet 
another just beyond, — inch by inch, foot 
by foot, — as the indomitable Yanks hacked 
and tore their way through thousands of 
enemy machine guns, — slogging along through 
acres of sticky and clinging mud; the others, 
further north, with the British, were driving 
forward only because, in the Argonne, the 
main body of the American Forces were 
drawing and riveting there the best divisions 
that badgered Ludendorff could muster. 

As one authority puts it: "While the Amer- 
icans, in their own offensive, were nosing 
their way through the enemy defenses north- 
west of Verdun, other American units, 
fighting side by side with the Australians, 
for the first time in this war that Yanks and 
Aussies had lined up together in a major 
operation, took part in the victorious British 
advance in Picardy." 

To these two divisions went the distinction 
of playing an important role in fighting which 
pierced the main defenses of the Hindenburg 
Line, at a point where that line and barrier 
of freedom was especially strong and where 
the enemy was prepared to resist with des- 
peration. 

These men fought their way, on the right 
of the British advance, north of Cambrai and 
Saint Quentin, with their objectives set at 
points beyond the line of the Saint Quentin 



FORGOTTEN FIGHTS OF THE A. E. F. 107 

Canal, on a stretch of front where that water- 
way, running underground for three miles, 
passes through what is known as the Belli- 
court Tunnel. 

The hillcrest just above the tunnel, the 
only stretch between Saint Quentin and 
Cambrai where this waterway protection 
did not exist and where an attack by tanks 
could be expected, had been fortified with 
all the care of the German General Staff. 
The Hindenburg Line in this vicinity was 
based upon the line of this tunnel, and its 
steep sides and stone embankments offered 
a most formidable line of defense. Here the 
Germans had concentrated troops and ma- 
chine guns, with strongly defended lines pro- 
tecting the hill in front. 

On entering the tunnel, one found the water- 
way to be thirty feet wide, with a broad tow- 
path on each side. Caverns had been dug 
out of the side walls and food and munitions 
were stored there, while the canal channel was 
filled with barges, which had been fitted up 
for troop quarters. In addition to this, 
there were galleries leading off in several 
directions and also another gallery above the 
tunnel itself. Having fitted these numerous 
barges with bunks and kitchens, the enemy 
had floated them into the tunnel, and had 
thus made the hill a literal fortress. Elec- 
tric lights, telephones, and a water system 
had been installed. Protected from the 
heaviest artillery fire by the earth and 
masonry above them, with each end of the 



108 FORGOTTEN FIGHTS OF THE A. E. F. 

tunnel blocked by concrete walls, the enemy 
was secure from all attack. Openings in the 
roof of the tunnel, through which stairways 
ran, gave exits for the men when ordered to 
take the offensive or relieve those in the out- 
lying trenches. At the mouth of the tunnel, 
lying close together, a correspondent picked 
up two battered helmets, — one an American, 
the other a German. What was their story? 
Where were the men who wore them? Did 
they meet here on alien soil, far from home, 
to grapple in a hand-to-hand conflict for 
supremacy until death sealed the verdict 
of their fate? Perhaps the answer lies buried 
in some unknown grave. 

The Americans started their attack at 5.50 
o'clock on the morning of September 29th, 
having previously fought their way to their 
jumping-off places, taking, a few days before, 
Guillemont Ferme, Quennemont Ferme, and 
a little hill known merely as "The Knoll," 
all outpost positions of the Hindenburg Line. 

That arrogant system of defenses was re- 
garded by the enemy as impregnable for it 
was constructed over miles and miles of hills 
and valleys, thorny with machine guns, 
honeycombed with mines and all sorts of 
enemy traps, and symbolizing all the pride, 
arrogance, treachery and invulnerability of 
the German war-lords. "Look at our Hin- 
denburg Line — it stands — it is unconquered! 
Deutschland uber alles! Gott strafe Amer- 
ika!" Such was no doubt the cry of many 
of the enemy press agents, but you will all 



FORGOTTEN FIGHTS OF THE A. E. F. 109 

very well remember that this hue and cry was 
done before the 29th of September, 1918. 

Let us realize fully that Marshal Foch 
absolutely knew the possibility or possibili- 
ties of this system of defenses; knew their 
value to the enemy spirit in the homes of 
the peasants beyond the Rhine. Therefore 
it became his great object during the later 
months of the war, to bring this ever-increas- 
ing strain that had been telling so terribly on 
the spirit of the German people to such a point 
that it could not hold out any longer. 

Accordingly, we can recall how Foch drove 
forward his invincible Allied drive during the 
summer months of 1918, beginning with the 
great counterstroke of July 18th, when he 
drove his legions against Ludendorff and 
smashed up his flanks and center quite badly. 
Then, on September 12th, he had sent for- 
ward the First American Army, under Gen- 
eral Pershing, in its first entirely American 
offensive, in Saint Mihiel, with such results 
as the Allied chiefs themselves had never 
dreamed of. 

One authority had put the situation and 
also endeavoured to place the part played 
by our boys at the Hindenburg Line in a 
quite enlarged and highly magnified aspect, 
which I am sure even the boys themselves 
of our 27th Division will smile at and pass by 
as the prattle of one who was rather high- 
spirited and over-enthusiastic. He says: 

"The British, Canadians, and Australians, 
with the American troops called upon to 



110 FORGOTTEN FIGHTS OF THE A. E. F. 

carry the ball across Hindy's goal line were 
entrusted with the most considerable thrust 
between the Meuse and the North Sea." 

Such was not the case at all, and, as my 
mission in this work is to tell the story of the 
American forces, with impartiality and ac- 
curacy, sticking closely to the official reports 
and accounts of these operations, I shall 
place the breaking of the Hindenburg Line 
in its true historical perspective, as set forth 
in official circles, by men who know far more 
about its relation to the great Allied smash 
than any other men in the whole world, — 
the men who planned and executed that 
smash. 

These men, under the unified leadership 
system which Marshal Foch had organized 
under his command, planned the great Allied 
smash which was to be thrown against the 
enemy at strategic points in the long-drawn 
battle-line. As the official report of this 
phase of allied operations puts it: "Every 
army performing its part as an intermeshing 
cog, without whose action the whole might 
stop." 

On September 21st, General Franchet 
d'Esprey's allied forces struck a smashing 
and final blow to Bulgaria on the Macedo- 
nian front, and on the 24th of September, 
General Allenby's British Army broke through 
in Palestine, — thus putting Bulgaria and 
Turkey out of it. Then, on the 24th of 
October, the Italians battered the Austrian 
defenses to pieces along the Piave and in the 



FORGOTTEN FIGHTS OF THE A. E. F. Ill 

Trentino, binding the enemy by a dictated 
armistice. 

On the extreme left of the western front 
in France and Belgium, the Belgian and 
British armies were instructed to keep up 
their pressure against the German right, — 
that section of the Armies of the Central 
Powers that was under the command of the 
Crown Prince of Bavaria. The French, in 
the center, were to keep on hammering against 
the Armies of the German Crown Prince, 
consisting of the First, Second, Seventh 
and Eighteenth Armies, which made up his 
Gruppen. 

Now let us quote again from the official 
sources: "But the real blows were to be 
struck on the right, where the entire force 
of the American machine was to be pitted 
against the German Third Army, under von 
Einem and the right of the Fifth Army under 
the command of von der Marwitz, these 
blows being intended to smash their way 
through the lines of the German Armies and 
cut the communications from the vicinity 
of Montmedy on through to Sedan." 

Thus it can be clearly seen that, contrary 
to the ideas of historians who were entirely 
unfamiliar with the workings and plannings 
of the allied commands, the really great 
fight, — and, as a matter of fact, the greatest 
fight that American troops ever have engaged 
in during the entire history of our country, 
was planned and fought in the mud of the 
Argonne, and that section which lies between 



112 FORGOTTEN FIGHTS OF THE A. E. F. 

the Meuse River line and the western ex- 
tremity of the Argonne plateau. 

This does not detract one whit, however, 
from the wonderful work which was accom- 
plished by our men of the 27th and 30th 
Divisions, who were operating with our 
Second Corps, with the British, in the vicinity 
of the Bellicourt tunnel of the Hindenburg 
system. These facts that I have enumerated 
above, serve only to set us right in regard to 
the place that this fight held in the great 
allied offensive that led finally to victory, in 
the last few months of 1918. 

For the sake of getting things well in mind, 
it might be well to enumerate the construc- 
tion of the 27th Division, as it fought in 
France. The 27th Division consisted of 
the following units: The 105th, 106th, 107th 
and 108th Infantry Regiments; the 104th, 
105th and 106th Machine Gun Battalions; 
the 104th, 105th and 106th Regiments of 
Field Artillery; the 102d Trench Mortar 
Battery; the 102d Engineers, and other di- 
visional and staff troops. 

These were the troops of the 27th Division 
which faced that impregnable system of 
enemy defenses, as they entered the line on 
that September evening in 1918. 

The allied staffs already had in their pos- 
session a German staff book which went into 
minutest detail in regard to the construction 
of the boasted Hindenburg Line, and which 
made bold to state that the section in the 



FORGOTTEN FIGHTS OF THE A. E. F. 113 

vicinity of Bellicourt tunnel was the hardest 
for any attacking force to assault. 

The outer defenses, as we have mentioned 
before, consisted of several lines of trenches, 
protected by masses of wire, as well as three 
strong points,— the Knoll, Quennemont Farm 
and Guillemont Farm, to say nothing of light 
and heavy machine guns, minenwerfer of all 
sizes, and concealed batteries everywhere. 
Likewise, at Guillemont Farm, the enemy 
had installed a most powerful flamenwerfer 
or flame-projector system. Such was the 
main part of the construction of the ground, 
which the enemy had extended to a depth of 
six miles, gullied and harrowed and literally 
strewn with hidden machine guns, which 
only spoke when our waves were at their 
mouths. 

Major General O'Ryan, commanding, set 
up his divisional P. C. in a chalk quarry at 
Saint Emilie, some few thousand yards 
behind the front, and, in accordance with the 
usual Flanders weather, — rain, — which is one 
of the greatest products of that part of France 
— ^had turned the roads into quagmires of 
slippery and clinging mud. And always and 
seemingly forever, roared the snarling and 
growling British guns, wiping out enemy 
works and pulverizing enemy defenses. 

No one who has never been at the battle 
area, under wartime conditions, can appre- 
ciate how pulsingly filled with restrained 
eagerness the men of these units were, — 
that unconquerable Yankee spirit that even 



114 FORGOTTEN FIGHTS OF THE A. E. F. 

the drenching rains of France could not 
dampen! Then is the time, when man talks 
to man confidentially of little secrets; of the 
bright lights of the little old town back there 
among the hills of the Empire State; of 
familiar places around Times Square or 
Herald Square, and how they know their 
friends were back there enjoying the light and 
warmth, and then it is that they begin to talk 
of their chances of getting back there once 
more to "carry on" there with the same vigor 
and dash that they were ''carrying on" that 
night in Picardy mud and rain! 

Out across No Man's Land, some four 
thousand yards ahead of them, lay the for- 
midable system of the Canal Tunnel, while 
on their right lay the men of the 30th Amer- 
ican Division, flanked by the French 10th 
Army, while the 3d British Corps was on 
their left. 

The operations which were destined to 
end in the breaking of the Canal Tunnel line, 
began with a machine gun barrage by com- 
panies A, C and D of the 105th Machine Gun 
Battalion, with Company B covering Tom- 
bois Road. The 104th Machine Gun Battal- 
ion was held in reserve to take over the sup- 
port positions at the critical time. This ma- 
chine gun preparation was followed by the 
artillery preparation, which fell upon the 
enemy positions at 5.20 on the morning of 
September 27th, and at which time the 106th 
Infantry, composing the attacking party, in 
conjunction with flank protection by one 



FORGOTTEN FIGHTS OF THE A. E. F. 115 

battalion of the 105th Infantry, on their left, 
affording flank protection against the enemy 
positions in the vicinity of Vendhuile. 

The enemy tank traps took a heavy toll, — 
out of some forty tanks going forward in the 
attack, only a dozen came back. Scores of 
men of the 106th Infantry fell before the 
withering fire of the enemy machine guns, 
which presented a veritable net-work of cross- 
fire in their front. But the advance was 
maintained, and the lines, though torn and 
rent by a tornado of exploding enemy shells, 
kept moving. At points in the immediate 
vicinity of Knoll Farm, the struggle for the 
mastery was particularly severe and bloody, 
and the shell-torn and crumbling ruins of the 
farm changed hands four times before the 
enclosure was finally strewn with the dead 
and dying of both sides, although the enemy 
dead outnumbered our own by dozens. The 
fighting continued all day, with the com- 
bating lines of bloody and snarling and 
vicious men continually at each other's 
throats, and, when the darkness finally set- 
tled down over the countrysides of Picardy, 
the 106th Infantry had been reduced to a 
small body of worn and weary, bloodstained 
and gasping humans, who continued to cling 
with the bull-dog tenacity of the Yanks to the 
gains which the sanguinary struggle of the 
day had netted them. 

On the morning of the 28th of September, 
having planned the taking of the enemy 
strong points at Quennemont and Guille- 



116 FORGOTTEN FIGHTS OF THE A. E. F. 

mont Farms and The Knoll, which were 
necessary for jumping-off points for the main 
attack, the divisional command sent forward 
the 107th and 108th Infantry Regiments, 
to the relief of the weary 106th, and the 
struggle for these positions was continued. 
All day long the seething lines of steel and 
battling humanity surged backward and for- 
ward in deadly combat, men dying in tens 
and scores in the vicinity of the strong points 
at Guillemont and Quennemont Farms. But 
the positions were taken as planned, and 
night saw the men of the 27th Division con- 
solidating their positions in these points. 

At 5.50 o'clock, on the morning of Septem- 
ber 29th, thirty-five guns of the 105th Ma- 
chine Gun Battalion opened a deadly barrage 
over the heads of the infantry, with the Tun- 
nel as its target, firing for one-half hour, at 
the rate of two hundred rounds per minute. 

Then, as the first streaks of the coming 
dawn began to filter over the torn and bruised 
French hillsides, came the greatest barrage 
of the entire war from the British guns. A 
veritable cataract of steel and fire leaped 
from the muzzles of our guns and fell upon the 
enemy positions of "Hindy;" over went the 
men of the 27th, fighting like demons every 
inch of the way; snarling, growling, frenzied 
Huns forced into the most desperate fight- 
ing of their lives, — the fight to hold their oft- 
boasted Hindenburg Line, — fought fiercely, 
and held tenaciously to their positions, until 
the dash and unbeatable spirit of the men of 



FORGOTTEN FIGHTS OF THE A. E. F. 117 

the 27th pushed their waves forward and made 
the positions untenable. 

The attack was synchronized with those 
of the French and British on the south and 
north flanks, and a squadron of forty tanks 
lumbered noisily forward toward the fire- 
spitting nests ahead, but were soon put out of 
the fighting by traps. Some of the enemy 
wire had escaped the preparatory fire of our 
batteries, and accordingly, the 102d Engi- 
neers moved forward, in advance of the in- 
fantry, and placed rolls of wire similar to 
** chicken-wire" over the enemy entangle- 
ments, and allowed the infantry to advance 
over these bands of wire and into the ** im- 
pregnable" positions beyond. Heavy mists 
and smoke entirely over-spread the country- 
side, as the men of the 107th and 108th 
Infantries swept forward against the frowning 
positions of "Hindy" that seemed to scowl 
menacingly upon them just ahead. But 
they continued their advance, in face of 
strong enemy flank fire, as well as fierce enemy 
attacks on their front, rear and flank, and a 
terrible counter by enemy reserves from 
Vendhuile, against the left of their sector, 
with the purpose of rolling up and crushing 
the American attack. These counters were 
met by the 105th Infantry, whose duty it 
was to shatter them, the enemy, nevertheless, 
operating on this flank, holding back the 
27th Division's left, and delivering repeated 
hurricanes of fire and men against our 
positions. 



118 FORGOTTEN FIGHTS OF THE A. E. F. 

Concrete pill-boxes had been strewn 
throughout the enemy positions in great 
quantities, and these were put out of action 
by the tanks, or, more often, encircled by the 
men of the 107th and 108th Infantries, and 
the defenders slain with grenades. It hap- 
pened, too, that many times, after the initial 
attacking waves had advanced over some of 
the tunnel terrain, enemy reserves would 
emerge from hidden air-shafts behind them 
and pour a withering fire upon them as they 
advanced. These underground shafts were 
of great importance to the enemy, as they 
of necessity prolonged their fight and in- 
creased the major casualties of the attackers. 

By two o'clock in the afternoon, our troops 
had taken the southern entrance of the tunnel, 
were in possession of Bellicourt, Nauroy 
and Cabaret Wood Farm, and before four 
o'clock they had entered Gouy, with the 
fields in their rear strewn with their valiant 
dead. 

Every road that led from the vicinity of 
the fighting to the rear, and more especially 
to the dressing stations, was trod by weary 
and worn and bruised and bleeding sons of 
the Empire State, who had come three 
thousand miles to show the Boche that 
pride and arrogance could not aspire to rule 
the affairs of men. Quennemont and Guille- 
mont Farms had lost their peace-time quietude 
and had been turned into veritable hells- 
on-earth; their farmyards carpeted with the 
dead and dying; their great flagstones 



FORGOTTEN FIGHTS OF THE A. E. F. 119 

Stained with the reddening stains of newly- 
spilied blood; their great walls torn and 
crumbling, and emitting the odors of battle, 
and the smell of human blood and scorching 
flesh and gas, and everywhere — the dead. 
Here men had died in scores, silencing the 
enemy guns. 

Evening came, and the reddening glow of 
the setting sun, as it fell behind the hills to 
the west, found the doughboys established 
in Bony, while one battalion, having ad- 
vanced far beyond its objective, had entered 
Gouy; and then the Australians "leap- 
frogged" through them, and carried on. 

The battalion in Gouy was cut off and en- 
tirely surrounded, but clung steadily to 
their positions, in spite of the fact that the 
rear was combed by shell -fire and machine 
gun bullets, and across this area no com- 
munication could be established. They were 
attacked from the front, rear, and both 
flanks, to say nothing of being fired on from 
the airplanes of the enemy which were con- 
stantly circling overhead, but they held their 
positions for eight hours. However, rumors 
began to reach Saint Emilie that this bat- 
talion had been lost, and those seemed to be 
borne out by the statement of a German officer 
who said that his men alone had taken prisoner 
over one hundred men in the vicinity of 
Guillemont Farm. General O'Ryan dis- 
missed him with the words: "Take him 
away, he lies!" 



120 FORGOTTEN FIGHTS OF THE A. E. F. 

Some of the stories of this battalion were 
to the effect that they had attempted to 
surrender and had been ambushed ; that they 
had all been killed outright, and finally, 
that they had been taken. The fact was that, 
as they advanced, the enemy had poured 
from concealed passages in their rear and 
shot down scores of them. Finally, they were 
discovered by a bunch of Australians, and, 
with a cry for revenge in their hearts, the men 
of this "lost battalion" dashed forward 
again with the "Aussies" and stuck with 
them. 

Some idea of the severity of the fighting 
can be realized when the authentic statement 
is made that one company of the 107th In- 
fantry went into the fight with 212 men and 
came out with only 12 men unwounded. 
When some of the 107th units had been torn 
to shreds, they had to retire to support 
positions and the 108th advanced, bombing 
out dugouts and positions in the main system 
and taking more than their own strength 
in prisoners, keeping these men with them, 
and at the same time fighting off severe 
enemy counters. 

Then came the Australians, bringing relief 
to the weary men of the 27th Division, many 
of whom went forward with them, refusing 
to get out of the fighting, although many of 
their outfits had been torn to shreds. 

And so it is that our pledge has been kept 
"on Flanders Fields!" It has been kept as 
our lines leaped forward over the top, as 



FORGOTTEN FIGHTS OF THE A. E. F. 121 

the faint streaks of coming day tinged the 
roseate east, as the lines of stalwart vouths 
advanced to do or die — determined that no 
price, however high, should be deemed too 
great to insure the people of bleeding France 
that 

"Poppies should bloom and keep their place 
On Flanders Fields." 

Under the lilies of France they lie, silently 
sleeping their last long sleep, as the soft 
breezes of coming spring murmur a soothing 
lullaby as they pass over the scarred fields,— 
fields scarred by the shell-craters of the 
fighting hosts, and scarred, too, with the 
graves of heroes. 

Having accomplished the seemingly im- 
possible, the 27th Division was relieved, and 
sent to the rear areas for a brief rest, before 
being returned to the line for the dash of 
October. 

The enemy had taken up prepared posi- 
tions along the line of the Selle River, and 
were completing preparations for determined 
resistance. The 27th and 30th Divisions, 
returning, took over the front and imme- 
diately made careful reconnaissances. 

On October 8th, the 30th Division, from 
its positions just east of Montbrehain, be- 
tween Cambrai and Saint Quentin, stood 
ready to begin a new drive which should 
carry it across the Selle River and in the di- 
rection of the Canal de Sambre. The di- 



CO «0 







■o • 

• 



FORGOTTEN FIGHTS OF THE A. E. F. 123 

rection of this advance must, of necessity, be 
toward the northeast, across rolling country. 
The enemy put up strong machine gun 
resistance at the villages and farms that lay 
scattered through the countryside, and it 
was therefore considered highly probable 
that strong resistance and also the most 
bitterly-fought defense could be looked for 
beyond the Selle River line. Accordingly, a 
general attack was made by the 1st French 
Army, and the 4th British Army, of which 
the 2d American Corps was a part. This 
army was disposed with the 9th British Corps 
on the right, the 2d American Corps in the 
center, and the 13th British Corps on the 
left. Then came the 3d British Army, on the 
extreme left. 

The attack was accompanied with a rolling 
barrage and tanks, the 30th Division at- 
tacking with the 117th Infantry on its right, 
the 118th Infantry on the left. The enemy 
put down a strong counter-barrage, but the 
heavy mists of the morning favored the at- 
tackers, and except for heavy fighting on the 
villages and farms and bits of woodland, the 
advance was across open country against 
only slight enemy resistance. 

By noon, Brancourt and Fremont were in 
our hands, and the line was running diagon- 
ally across the Bohain-Premont-Cambrai 
road, with the enemy retiring rapidly, and 
putting up only rear guard actions with ma- 
chine guns, burning buildings and supply 
and ammunition dumps. 



124 FORGOTTEN FIGHTS OF THE A. E. F. 

At five in the evening, the 6th British 
Division had taken Bohain; the 30th Amer- 
ican Division was occupying Busigny and 
Becquigny, while, to the west of Busigny, the 
30th was astride the western circuit of the 
enemy's most important railway line, — that 
which ran from Metz to Mezieres and Hirson 
to Valenciennes and Lille. 

By October 10th, the 25th British Division 
was advancing on the left, the 6th British 
Division was a slight distance behind on the 
right, and the attack was resumed. Escau- 
fourt on the left, the western edges of Saint 
Souplet in the center, and Vaux-Andigny 
on the right were taken in this attack. Saint 
Souplet is situated on the west of the Selle 
River, and, on account of the favorable 
terrain in its vicinity, the enemy had es- 
tablished a resistance line on the hills east 
of the river, at which point their reinforce- 
ments held up our advance. 

However, on the 11th of October, Saint 
Souplet, Vaux-Andigny and Saint Benin 
were cleared, and the advance along the river 
continued. This advance would command 
the railway line parallel to the Selle, from 
St. Souplet to Le Cateau. Here the 27th 
Division relieved the 30th. 

The 4th Army front had now penetrated 
far to the east of the desolate Somme Valley, 
and was now in the midst of scenes untouched 
by the devastating hands of war. There was 
green in abundance here. Green things grew 
in the fields and gardens, where the houses 



FORGOTTEN FIGHTS OF THE A. E. F. 125 

still had roofs on them, and windows, and 
where the civilians lived the lives of normal 
human beings. 

In this peaceful valley, the 27th lay still 
for a couple of days, waiting for guns, sup- 
plies and ammunition, which had been lost 
in the dash, to come up. Then, on October 
16th, having rested for a few days, and hav- 
ing reorganized its forces, the 30th Division 
returned to the line, taking over the right 
half of the 27th Division's sector. This gave 
each division a frontage of only about 2,000 
yards, thereby giving the driving power of 
each division a decidedly greater punch. It 
was evidenced that here the enemy would 
resist stubbornly, for there was disposed in 
line, five complete divisions, as well as ele- 
ments of six others in reserve areas. 

On October 17th, at 5.25 A.M., through a 
drizzling rain and heavy, low-hanging mists, 
under cover of their barrage, the attack was 
resumed by the two American divisions. 
Heavy counter-barrage fire was laid down by 
the enemy, as well as greatly increased ma- 
chine gun fire. Despite resistance, however, 
and the slippery, chalky soil, the men of the 
27th Division waded through the river, 
climbed the opposite bank and pushed dog- 
gedly forward into the mists. As practically 
all of the bridges had been destroyed by the 
enemy, the 102d Engineers, advancing just 
behind the first wave of the attack, threw 
hastily-constructed bridges across the river, 
and the 105th and 108th Infantry Regiments 



126 FORGOTTEN FIGHTS OF THE A. E. F. 

soon were successfully assaulting the heights 
beyond. 

The enemy losses were heavy, and fourteen 
hundred prisoners, large quantities of muni- 
tions and railroad stock were taken. 

The feat of fording the stream, climbing the 
slippery banks on the opposite side, and 
scaling the embankment of the railway, just 
beyond St. Souplet, in the face of the galling 
enemy fire, was almost unbelievable. Yet 
it was done. 

Fourteen tanks, part of the 301st American 
Tank Battalion, having crossed the river to 
the north of St. Souplet, preceded the attack- 
ing waves of the 27th Division, whose left 
had been held up by the difficulty experienced 
by the 25th British Division in breaking 
through the little triangle formed by the rail- 
way line south of Le Cateau. But, neverthe- 
less, the front of the 27th Division was pushed 
over the ridge, taking Molain on the right and 
establishing their lines through the positions 
in Arbre de Guise. And this in spite of the 
fact that both their flanks were drawn back- 
ward for liaison with the other divisions. 

The advancing forces were now encounter- 
ing especially heavy artillery fire and the 
enemy were launching several strong coun- 
ters, which evidenced that they were forced 
to resist strongly to cover their further with- 
drawal of their heavy artillery. They had 
been surprised by the resumption of the 
attacks. 



FORGOTTEN FIGHTS OF THE A. E. F. 127 

On the 18th of October, the 27th Division 
again attacked, with the 13th Corps (British), 
encountering heavy machine gun resistance 
from the farms on the slopes ahead, as well 
as counter-attacks supported by enemy ar- 
tillery. But, at noon, the 30th Division, 
after obstinate fighting for Ribeauville, took 
that town, after heavy artillery preparation, 
and, by mid-afternoon, the enemy resistance 
had so far weakened as to allow the whole 
front to push forward to the next line of hills, 
which lay about two miles from the Canal de 
Sambre, and in the vicinity of the town of 
Catillon. As the moonlight, cold and clear, 
came to throw its lengthening shades over 
the battle-fields, it looked down upon the men 
of the 30th Division occupying Mazingheim 
(between Ribeauville and Catillon) assist- 
ed by flank attacks by the 27th Division 
from the north. The 27th took Jonc de Mer 
Farm and La Roux Farm, crossing Jonc de 
Mer brook and the ridge and pushing for- 
ward almost to the ridge west of the St. 
Maurice River. 

On October 19th patrols were pushed for- 
ward toward the Canal de Sambre, all along 
the front, those of the 27th Division, reaching 
the western bank of the St. Maurice River, 
while those of the 30th Division reached the 
last ridge west of Catillon and the Canal. 

Artillery and other necessary preparations 
were now begun for the next great organized 
attack, which had for its purpose the crossing 
of the Canal de Sambre and the St. Maurice 



128 FORGOTTEN FIGHTS OF THE A. E. F. 

River. But, as the 27th and 30th American 
Divisions were not in condition to be used 
longer without a rest, and having become 
critically reduced by losses and fatigue they 
were relieved, on the 21st of October, by the 
6th British Division, which took over the 
sector of the 27th, and the 1st British Division, 
taking over that of the 30th, during the night. 
The 27th and 30th Divisions now were drawn 
back to the vicinity of Amiens for a rest. 

In its battle from September 29th to Octo- 
ber 21st, the Second American Corps had 
advanced a total of about twenty miles, 
taken about one-tenth of the prisoners of the 
A. E. F. 

From this point the British forces of the 
6th and 1st Division pushed the enemy for- 
ward for a distance of about twenty-five 
miles beyond the Sambre, and, when the 
signing of the armistice called a halt to the 
hostilities all along the front, it found them 
just within the frontier of Belgium. 



FORGOTTEN FIGHTS OF THE A. E. F. 129 

CHAPTER VIII. 
The Yankee Soldier. 

And so it was that the American doughboy 
in France, "came, saw, and conquered" every- 
thing before him. And, then, when his work 
was done, he was compelled to stay in France 
many weary months, while others argued 
and made speeches on Leagues of Nations 
and peace conferences and the like, — seeming- 
ly having forgotten the men who made those 
things possible. 

And the Yankee soldier did some kicking, 
and no one on earth could blame him for 
doing so either. He was entitled to grumble. 
Of his deeds, they are already history. Of 
himself, on the line or in the rest areas, he 
was an American, — that is all — a big, reliant, 
fearless, splendid American. He did every 
job that was asked of him and did it right. 
He played hard and he fought hard. He 
went into a fight with as brave a heart as 
God ever placed in human breast, and with 
a smile on his face he passed down into the 
Valley of the Shadow. He was the finest 
soldier in Europe, and there are scores of 
great soldiers of all nations who will attest 
the veracity of this statement, and have done 
so already. Sam Browne belts were not popu- 
lar with him. Some of his officers, newly 
come to their rank, were not equal to their 



130 FORGOTTEN FIGHTS OF THE A. E. F. 

tasks, but he always was. He was always 
and simply, — the little old fighting private! 

By his sublime courage, his unfailing op- 
timism and his abiding faith that nothing 
could withstand the United States of Amer- 
ica, he smashed through every obstacle, 
and would have gone to Berlin, had not the 
Armistice stopped his victorious advance. 
As one "scrap of paper" had been Germany's 
downfall, so another scrap of paper saved her 
from reaping the whirlwind she had started. 

Of this we are certain. Never again will 
any nation which saw the American soldier 
in action, challenge him without a realization 
of what the challenge means. 

If you had been with him, lived with him 
and fought beside him, and been through 
hell with him, and had seen him turn up at 
every turn with a grin, then you would have 
come to know him, as I have known him. 

Have you ever stopped to think that he 
has faced the Great Unknown so much 
that it holds no fear for him? That he knows 
what glory means, when it is mixed with 
mud and blood and the suffering and death 
and fighting of the nerve- wracking days and 
nights in the line? Do you know that he has 
slept in the slush and mud and rain and still 
sang or whistled a tune of rag-time as the 
great guns barked and tore the heavens with 
their flashes? Do you know that he has 
lived upon a single meal a day, and kept on 
singing the lilting tunes of the home-town 
cabaret? Do you know that, perhaps, he 



FORGOTTEN FIGHTS OF THE A. E. F. 131 

has fallen many times in the dark with limp, 
still things all around him? And then, at the 
hospital, called the nurse "kid" and begged 
her to help him get back to that sort of life 
again? Did you ever hike a hundred miles 
and carry your house on your back, while 
your feet were blistered and sore, and your 
shoulders were cut by the pack-straps? 
Did you ever live in the rain and snow and the 
cold, and eat your meals with your plate in 
your lap? I have marched along dusty 
French roads,— only one of a million Amer- 
ican lads,— all so very much alike after all,— 
spirits as keen as a fresh flash of flame,— 
ready to strike whenever the chance might 
come to them, as come it would. Just a 
bunch of lads, with boyish grins,— waiting 
the chance to hustle into the fight,— thrilled 
by the battle and the din and crash of the 
guns. Tramping along through the darkness; 
splashing along through the mud and rain, 
with a pack chafing our backs, — bound for 
the trenches again ! Watching the flashes 
of light in the distance and the splotches of 
red in the sky; hearing now and then the 
scream of a shell bursting in a convoy creep- 
ing along the road to the right. Tramping 
along, — rain in our faces and running icy 
cold down our backs,— silent and thoughtful, 
—forever moving forward,— bound for the 
lines again! 

The first crimson streaks of coming dawn 
appear in the eastern heavens; and the pock- 
marked fields begin to come out of the misty 



132 FORGOTTEN FIGHTS OF THE A. E. F. 

morning, that chills one to the very bone. 
Like a silvery thread the river cuts a wind- 
ing course through the green and brown of 
its banks. 

And yet, how very quiet and lonely the 
whole land is ! Only the dead men whose dis- 
torted bodies lie along the roadways or hang 
upon the great tangles of the wire before 
the old battered trenches, live in this beau- 
tiful land. And what a multitude of shallow 
graves are in the fields, — some of them are 
marked by crosses, others only by a single 
stick with its tiny metal tag upon it, and still 
others by the owner's rifle, its bayonet driven 
point down into the soil, and its occupant's 
bloodstained helmet hanging from its bolt. 
Graves, singly or in twos or threes or clus- 
ters, — as they fell. 

And yet we pass thousands of human 
beings, — clad in blue, — the immortal horizon- 
blue of heroic France. And we think of his 
long vigil, — we try to place our few short 
days of fighting and hell beside his four years 
and more; and we fall to wondering whether 
his home has been destroyed as those are 
before us, and thank God that the fighting 
and destruction and suffering and death and 
sacrifice is all so far away from our own dear 
homes and the loved ones back there; that 
our little cottage, — a cosy, snug little affair, 
with its roses and gardens and the children 
and mother and dad, and perhaps the wife 
or sweetheart, — is still there, — ^just as cosy 
and warm, and the folks just as sweet as 



FORGOTTEN FIGHTS OF THE A. E. F. 133 

when we left them, in the budding springtime. 
And we wonder if we, too, shall be returning 
to them all once again, after this terrible 
nightmare of fighting is all over, — or, — or 
whether we shall soon be nestled snugly in 
one of those little green mounds of sacred 
French soil, like those in the field nearby? 
And then, almost as if by some sort of a 
pre-arranged plan, someone in the column 
strikes up the familiar tune, and we all sing 
as we tramp onward: 

"Keep your head down, Fritzie boy, 
Keep your head down, Fritzie boy. 
Last night, by the star-shell light 
We saw you, we saw you. 
You were mending your broken wire. 
When we opened our rapid fire. 
If you want to see your father in your 

Fatherland, 
Keep your head down, Fritzie boy." 

Shall we ever forget those scenes we saw, 
as we slogged along the weary miles that led 
to the front? Loud spitting motor trucks 
and great trains of wagons, and caissons and 
guns, and weary tramping men, — all jammed 
into one seemingly conglomerate mass, — 
plodding along in the darkness and mud and 
rain of France, moving toward the front. 

And night after night, always came the 
same sights, — nights of hard and never- 
ceasing work and marching, — days of toil 
over maps and battle plans ; one or two hours' 
sleep, — at least we called it sleep, — in every 



134 FORGOTTEN FIGHTS OF THE A. E. F. 

twenty-four, just a wink now and then, as 
chance or circumstance permitted, — until 
we lost all trace or semblance of time- 
reckoning. Day meant nothing but toil and 
working over maps and plans again, and night 
meant nothing but dull tramping onward 
through seas of mud and tangled masses of 
humans and guns and caissons and rain, 
pushed here and there by the passing of the 
huge camions and lorries laden with the food 
for the great guns that were flashing out 
just ahead of us, — calling us onward to the 
land of heroes, fighting and death, perhaps. 
Life had resolved itself into nothing but mud 
and rain and weary men and guns. 

Weary, did I say? Well, some weary too! 
but nevertheless, always singing. And what 
did we sing? — "Dixie" and "Where Do We 
Go from Here,"— "The Last Long Mile," 
and many of those weary, muddy French 
roads were covered to the tune of: 

"There's a long, long trail a- winding 
Into the land of my dreams." 

But, now we have returned again! 

To get back home, again, and to see there 
old friends and faces of long vanished days; 
to hear some friendly voice call out from the 
old familiar streets or oft-remembered places, 
which we trod in the days of youth, before 
the red days of 1914. To get back home again, 
where rain and sunshine is abundant; where 
the lights of home hold up their golden shield, 
with its soft, warm arms of welcome, from 



FORGOTTEN FIGHTS OF THE A. E. F. 135 

out the long ago, waiting to welcome us from 
the fields of France. 

To get back home again, — to know at 
last the guns are silent from Flanders to 
Lorraine; the days of marching through the 
mud are past, the nights of terror in the 
driving rains of France, lie hidden in the 
midst of the Argonne glades, — all of it a grim, 
yet holy specter of our dreams, — of the years 
that wait ahead of us, where every shadow 
lifts before the smile of loved ones that wel- 
come through their tears. 

To get back home again, — to see the purple 
twilights and sunsets of the native land, — 
beyond the black shadows and misty dawns 
still filled with ghosts and death, — beyond 
the dreamless sleep of those who wait to 
hold the line they fought for to the end, — 
eternal sentinels at Freedom's Gate! 

"And only silent thoughts of those who stay 
To hold the guard across the endless years. 
Who will not come again the ancient way." 

Above the broken walls, the apple-boughs 
of the French springtime are murmurous with 
bees; again the breezes of coming "Prin- 
temps" whirl the drifting chestnut-flowers, 
and the little ruffling winds will soon be going 
merrily through the poplar trees; and though 
we are now far, far away in our homeland, 
we shall know that once again the spring has 
come to France. 

Soon again the blood-red poppies shall 
bloom in the wheatfields; the rains of spring 



136 FORGOTTEN FIGHTS OF THE A. E. F. 

gleam along the boulevards, and the flower- 
girls, with mignonette and pinks and clematis 
shall come again to sell their wares in Paris 
streets; the Seine, slipping under the pretty 
bridges to the sea, — and the west; and out 
in the countryside of the beautiful Yonne 
Valley, shall shine the pale golden smile of 
the buttercups, that glorifies the gray ruins 
with bravery heartbreaking and valiant, — 
the smile that lights the eyes of France! 
And beyond the dark days of the past, we 
have seen, not the worn, steadfast France, — 
wan, gallant, spent, with eyes burned hag- 
gard by the spirit of the Maid of Orleans and 
Charlotte of Normandy, — but France, tri- 
umphant, high of heart, smiling through 
throbbing drums, — on Reims restored, Nan- 
cy and Alsace-Lorraine, in this new spring 
that comes, — the spring the halt and blind 
and dead and the rest of us who fought, have 
brought again to France! 



FORGOTTEN FIGHTS OF THE A. E. F. 137 

CHAPTER IX. 
To Our Dead! 

When our glasses are raised in the many 
happy fetes that shall crown the homecoming 
of the fighters; when the cheeks of the vic- 
tors are flushed with the new joys of the home- 
land; and when the Cup of Life seems filled 
to its fullest measure with the joy of living 
once more in the peaceful land of our 
nativity ; let us then drink, deep and long, — 
those of us who shall tread again the undis- 
turbed pathway of life, — let us drink to 
those who gave their Wine of Life that the 
world might once again enjoy the sunshine 
of Peace, and whose souls hallow the stretches 
of the Argonne and the silent wastes of Pi- 
cardy. 

They are sleeping where they fell, along 
our lines ; placed in their narrow cots of earth 
by the hands of loving and sorrowing com- 
rades! Beside the gaping shell-craters of 
Thiaucourt, and upon the bloody slopes of 
the Bois de Belleau and the bald Nose of 
Grand Pre; sleeping quietly the last sleep 
of the brave, among the poppied fields of 
France. 

How silently they rest beneath their tiny 
wooden crosses! Hearing no more the roar 
of guns that once belched their thunder of 



138 FORGOTTEN FIGHTS OF THE A. E. F. 

death across the barren wastes of No Man's 
Land; unmindful of the sweet songs of the 
birds among the bursting buds and blossoms 
of spring, in the apple orchards of Picardy. 

How bravely and gallantly they marched 
away, — that other generations, as yet un- 
born, might possess the fruits of their suf- 
fering and death, — that the heritage of hap- 
piness for which they fought and bled should 
bless the whole earth. What a glorious 
martyrdom! Baring their bosoms freely, 
rather than have the flag of their country 
dishonored and her name reviled; their 
breasts the bulwark and the fortress of right 
and justice, upon which the temple of Free- 
dom should be raised in the sight of all 
nations. 

It was not our privilege to die for the land 
that we love. But when are met the loyal 
hosts of those who fought, — around that 
board shall ring the glasses, raised in memory 
of our hero dead! Not even death itself shall 
utterly divide we who have struggled to- 
gether on the fields of France. We salute 
our hero dead! — Dead upon the Field of 
Honor for the nation in the hour of her need ! 
Our banners carry the glorious names of 
Cantigny, Bois de Belleau, Torcy, Chateau- 
Thierry, Marne, Champagne, Saint Mihiel 
and Argonne, and many others, — stars in 
America's crown of glory, — names which they 
who died upon those fields have written in 
letters of purest gold upon the crown of the 
country which sent them forth! 



FORGOTTEN FIGHTS OF THE A. E. F. 139 

Let US here offer our last, supreme homage 
of gratitude and affection, — would it might 
have been beside those freshly-dug graves 
upon the slopes of the Argonne, where they 
rest in the shadow of the Tricolor of France, 
beside all the brave fellows, whose deeds they 
have emulated, — justly entitled to be counted 
among the illustrious dead of the ages, — 
America's sacrifice upon the Altar of Freedom ! 

Lads of the Golden Legion, we who knew 
you, worked with you, ate with you, slept 
with you, and fought beside you, salute you 
as we pass the spot where you lie. Our 
breath comes faster, our hearts beat stronger, 
and our eyes grow dim with the tears of 
comrades, as we pass the spot, but we pass on, 
better and stronger men. Your bodies alone, 
torn by the merciless hands of the enemy, 
have gone from amongst us; your souls, 
long since gone to the Great White Comrade 
still hover over us; your memory remains 
in our hearts, — imperishable, shining and 
tender. 

Laddies, we who have returned to the land 
of our fathers, salute you! — Farewell! 



140 FORGOTTEN FIGHTS OF THE A. E. F. 

THE HOMECOMING. 

From the squelching mud of Flanders, 
From the Chateau-Thierry wheat, 
From the shattered Halles of Ypres, 
From where Scarpe and Escaut meet, 
From the shell-strewn slopes of Verdun, 
Comes the tramp of marching feet. 
For the boys are coming home. 

Ye who sat in the twilight when the light of 

your homes was gone, 
Who wearily watched and waited till the 

day when the war was done, 
What will ye think on the day when they all 

come back, who can, 
And the boy you sent with a mother's tears 

returns, but returns a man. 

Browned by the suns of foreign climes, with 

the lines of fate in his face, 
The lines of men who have fought with men 

in many a fearful place, 
Men who have looked old death in the face 

and laughed as he passed them by. 
But, "Where is the boy 1 gave to you?" I 

can hear the mothers cry. 

Oh, mother, thy son has come back to thee, 

tempered and tried like steel. 
In the flaming fire of the hell of war where 

the charging legions reel. 
Where the rocket gleams on the bayonet 

(where it is not dyed with red), 
And the fitful glare of the Verey flare lights 

up the face of the dead. 



FORGOTTEN FIGHTS OF THE A. E. F. 141 

He has seen men die with a smile on their lips 

that the nations might be free. 
He has charged the foe with his blood on fire 

and has seen the foeman flee. 
And mother, the boy who thus passed through 

hell can be no longer a boy. 
For the ore of Man in that furnace tried is 

metal without alloy. 

And to those whose sons have tarried awhile, 

asleep in their Mother Earth, 
Whose brave young souls have barred the 

foe from the land that gave them birth, 
I say to them "Weep," for weep they must, 

but hold up their heads, as they can. 
For the boy they gave at the Nation's call 

has gone to his rest, a man. 

From the squelching mud of Flanders, 
From the Chateau-Thierry wheat. 
From the shattered Halles of Ypres, 
From where Scarpe and Escaut meet, 
From the shell-strewn slopes of Verdun, 
Comes the tramp of marching feet. 
For the men are coming home. 



James Beveridge, Sgt. M. C, 
First printed in "Stars and Stripes," France. 



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